Massive police raids on suspected protestors in Minneapolis

www.presstv.com/Detail.aspx

Obama would engage Iran early next year
Fri, 29 Aug 2008 17:56:37 GMT

US Democratic nominee Senator Barack Obama (R) and his vice president, Senator Joe Biden

Source: www.presstv.com/Detail.aspx

Biden and “Dumb Wars”

Aug 25, 2008

genehealy.com/2008/08/biden-and-dumb-wars/

In his 2002 speech, then state-senator Barack Obama said, “I’m not opposed to all wars. I’m opposed to dumb wars.” And that would certainly represent an improvement over what we’ve got now. Curious, then, that Obama’s picked a running mate who seems to have no such objection.

Today’s Washington Post details Biden’s role in enabling our Iraq adventure. It’s hardly a “Profiles in Courage” moment, and it also points up the gutless and constitutionally suspect manner in which Congress authorized the war: by delegating the final decision over war and peace to the president:

In the days that led up to the vote on the war resolution, Biden and McCain stood together on the Senate floor, sometimes fighting against each other, sometimes fighting in tandem. They teamed up to shoot down an amendment by Sen. Carl M. Levin (D-Mich.) that would have forced Bush to seek further authorization before an actual invasion. They were on opposite sides of the effort to narrow the war mission from regime change in Iraq to combating Hussein’s alleged weapons of mass destruction. And Biden expressed plenty of misgivings about Bush’s intentions.

“The president always has the right to act preemptively if we are in imminent danger. If they are coming up over the hill, he can respond. If troops are coming out of Tijuana, heading north, we can respond. If they are coming down from Toronto, we can respond. If missiles are on their way, we can respond. But that is not the way I hear it being used here. We are talking about preemption, as if we are adopting a policy,” Biden said.

….

But in Biden’s closing remarks before the war vote in 2002, he also voiced a remarkable degree of trust in Bush. “The president has argued that confronting Iraq would not detract from the unfinished war against terrorism. I believe he is right. We should be able to walk and chew gum at the same time,” he said. “

Walk, chew gum, and play the harmonica, perhaps–having learned little from the Iraq experience, Biden in April 2007 called for American boots on the ground in Darfur:

Joseph Biden, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and a Democratic presidential candidate, called Wednesday for the use of military force to end the suffering in Darfur.

“I would use American force now,” Biden said at a hearing before his committee. “I think it’s not only time not to take force off the table. I think it’s time to put force on the table and use it.”

In advocating use of military force, Biden said senior U.S. military officials in Europe told him that 2,500 U.S. troops could “radically change the situation on the ground now.”

U.S. soldiers say they executed Iraqis

The United States of America is the Next Argentina

Darryl R. Schoon
The Market Oracle
August 27, 2008

www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article5990.html

I have a bad feeling about what’s about to happen. The Great Depression is the closest that comes to mind. I, like most, was not alive during the 1930s when it happened. Nonetheless, what once was feared in private is now being discussed in public. It’s going to be bad. It’s going to make high school seem like fun.

THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA THE NEXT ARGENTINA

This Time is Different: A Panoramic View of Eight Centuries of Financial Crises by University of Maryland‘s Carmen Reinhart and Harvard’s Kenneth Rogoff makes for perfect reading when flying between the US and Argentina.

There is perhaps no better analysis than Reinhart and Rogoff’s on the history of sovereign defaults; and, as such, Reinhart and Rogoff’s paper was ideal reading material when traveling between the US and Argentina , for the sovereign defaults that happened in the past to Argentina will soon be happening to the US .

But a US default will make Argentina ’s debt defaults pale both by comparison and consequence. The US , unlike Argentina , is the world’s largest economy, the issuer of the world’s reserve currency and the world’s largest debtor—and a default by the US on its debt will shake the very foundations of our increasingly fragile global economy.

SOVERIGN DEBT LIQUIDATING AMBITION

The power of ambition is extraordinary. The power of ambition transformed the US from the world’s only creditor after WWII into the world’s largest debtor in less than fifty years. Wanting to emulate England ’s 19 th century empire in the 20 th , the US instead has mirrored England decline in the 20 th century here in the 21 st .

Credit and borrowing fueled America ’s ambitions in the 20 th century as it had England ’s in the 18 th and 19 th . During the 1980s, to pay for President Reagan expansion of the military, the US quadrupled its national debt in less than a decade by borrowing three trillion dollars during a presidency pledged to balance the budget.

When Reagan took office, US debt totaled one trillion dollars. When Reagan left office, US debt totaled four trillion dollars. Reagan’s vaunted slogan of fiscal conservatism was just that—a slogan; and while talk is cheap, the debts now have to be repaid.

Just as the costs of WWI forced England to abandon the gold standard in the early 1900s, post WWII military spending forced the US to suspend the convertibility of the US dollar to gold in 1971; and the consequences, e.g. burgeoning trade deficits and global currency instability, are now putting unsustainable strains on a financial system already in extremis .

Ambition has its price and the bill is now due and owing. The question is: how will the US pay what it owes? In Hyman Minsky’s Financial Instability Model, the US is close to “Ponzi status” if not already there since the US is having to roll its debt forward and borrow from others to pay the interest as it can no longer pay down the principle.

In 2006, in an article published by the St Louis Federal Reserve Bank, Professor Laurence Kotlikoff stated the US was “technically bankrupt” as there was no way the US could pay the $65.9 trillion it owed.

Evidently, Professor Kotlikoff was conservative in his estimate or we’re going downhill faster than he knew. Just three months ago, on May 28, 2008 Richard W. Fisher, President and CEO of the Dallas Federal Reserve Bank estimated the obligations of the US to be actually $99.2 trillion, 50 % higher than Kotlikoff’s figures.

Fisher stated: In the distance, I see a frightful storm brewing in the form of untethered government debt . I choose the words—“frightful storm”—deliberately to avoid hyperbole. Unless we take steps to deal with it, the long-term fiscal situation of the federal government will be unimaginably more devastating to our economic prosperity than the subprime debacle and the recent debauching of credit markets that we are now working so hard to correct.

Fisher should know what the US owes and the danger that sum represents. As President and CEO of the Dallas Federal Reserve Bank, Fisher is a part of the Federal Reserve

System—the very system that has indebted America into perpetuity when its credit-based money forced out gold and silver based money in 1913.

But in his speech Fisher said nothing about the role the Federal Reserve has played in America ’s fatal dance with debt, warning instead about the increasing costs of entitlements such as Social Security and Medicare.

Fisher is part of a larger effort to now blame America ’s entitlements as the primary cause of our problems, assiduously avoiding the role his own Federal Reserve Bank has played in sinking our once wealthy nation into perpetual indebtedness.

In truth, the entitlement program that poses the greatest threat to America is—and always has been—the Federal Reserve System. Without the Federal Reserve’s credit-based money whose compounding interest (paid to the bankers) is obliged to be paid for by a possibly unconstitutional US income tax [note: the Federal Reserve Act and Federal Income Tax were both instituted the same year in 1913], the US would not be indebted and bankrupt as it is now.

If Ben Bernanke and Richard Fisher et. al. at the privately owned Federal Reserve Bank resigned and stopped plundering the US for their own benefit at the expense of the public in order to line the pockets of their banker friends with public funds, the US might have a chance of successfully getting out of this mess.

But, of course, they won’t and the now privately controlled US government will continue to indebt the American public so insiders can continue to profit immensely at the public trough. But the question still remains, how will the US pay its unpayable debt? The answer is as clear as it is obvious. It won’t because it can’t.

DEBT & DESTRUCTION SOUTH OF THE BORDER

In their well-researched paper, Serial Defaults and Its Remedies , Reinhart and Rogoff write “Cycles in capital flows to emerging markets have now been with us for two hundred years”. If we are to understand the dynamics of serial default, it would do us well to look at these cycles and their relevance to what is happening today.

Serial Defaults and Its Remedies, Section 2. Capital Flow Cycles and the Syndrome of “This Time Is Different” :

..a pattern of borrowing followed by crisis is evident in the string of defaults during 1826-28 in Latin America that come on the heels of the first wave of massive capital flows from Britain into Latin America in 1822-25…A second wave of capital flows from Britain came during the 1850s and 1860s. The cycle ended with the crisis of 1873. The next wave of capital flows into emerging markets coincided with the shift of the financial epicenter of the world from London to New York . Among Latin American countries, the borrowing binge of 1925-28 was [financed] with “cheap” money from New York . Capital flows peaked in 1928, the year before the U.S. Stock market crash ushered in financial and currency crises around the world and eventually an international debt crisis during 1929-33.

Argentina is at the very epicenter of Latin America borrowings and defaults and a cursory judgment may well lay the blame for such on Argentina . But understanding the past is akin to sedimentary sampling and a deeper reading of events reveals far more than the too familiar story of a spendthrift deadbeat nation borrowing more than prudence would otherwise dictate.

The capital flows from England and the US in the last two hundred years to Latin America were flows of credit, not money. The distinction is critical in understanding what has happened during the last two centuries. It explains the basis of the British Empire and current American power. It also explains the exploitation of Argentina .

The British Empire was founded on the central bank invention of credit-based money and the subsequent ability to substitute this new “money” for costly gold and silver; and the issuance of paper money allegedly backed by gold and silver is a critical component in the confidence game of central bankers to pass off their printed coupons as the real thing.

What the private bankers accomplished with the creation of the Bank of England was the government’s “legitimization” of the bankers’ new credit based coupons, sic paper money—coupons upon which the private bankers could now charge interest just as they had when loaning actual gold (what a wonderful scam). The new coupons were a lot easier to come by, especially when the king gave them a monopoly over its issuance.

The advantage to the king was that the king now had an unlimited supply of “money” that could be used to finance his wars—wars which led to the establishment of the British Empire; the cost of which was transferred directly as a burden to the people as the new counterfeit debt-based money was now an obligation of the state, not of the king.

This was the genesis (genius to the bankers and government) of the modern income tax where the people are forced to pay interest on the credit-based money issued by their own government. This was also the beginning of credit-based markets, deceptively called capitalism in order to closely identify the newly counterfeit credit based economy with the real money it had replaced.

CAPITALISM THE SPREAD OF DEBT IN DISGUISE

The flow of credit from England and then from its surrogate successor, the US, to developing nations such as Argentina was but the flow of printed coupons designed to harness and indebt the wealth and productivity of new lands.

The “capital” was really only credit, thinly disguised debt in the form of paper money originally issued by central banks, the Bank of England in Britain and the Federal Reserve Bank in the US , the twin towers of monetary Mordor.

The wonderfully sounding idea of unfettered capitalism is but a smokescreen for bankers to leverage their coupons in the form of credit and thereby indebt and control the productivity and wealth of others. As such, it has accomplished its goal admirably but its success will now cost the bankers dearly.

Three centuries of indebting nations, businesses, and the citizenry with constantly compounding debt is no longer sustainable. This is why central bankers in London , New York , Paris , and Tokyo are in such distress. Debtors can no longer pay their debts, defaults are on the rise and bankers may actually have to find real jobs if their confidence game continues to disintegrate.

BANKERS’ FEARS

Lawrence Summers’ credentials as a banker are impeccable. Educated at MIT and Harvard in economics, Summers has served as Chief Economist for the World Bank, US Secretary of the Treasury and President of Harvard University.

Recently, in March 2008, Summers stated:..we are facing the most serious combination of macroeconomic and financial stresses that the U.S. has faced in a generation–and possibly, much longer than that…It’s a grave mistake to believe in the self-equilibrating properties of economies in the face of large shocks. Markets balance fear and greed. And when fear takes over, the capacity for self-stabilization is not one that can be relied upon.

On June 29, 2008 the Financial Times quoted Summers:… we are in an economic environment where we have more to fear than fear itself …

Lawrence Summer’s fears are not to be taken lightly. They are the banker’s equivalent of Jim Cramer’s televised fit of fear when interviewed on CNBC last year, see http://eddriscoll.com/archi... target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watc...

While Summers is rightfully fearful of the current economic environment, the rest of us have far more to fear from bankers like Lawrence Summers and others like him. Summer’s role in the manipulation of the price of gold is found in his 1988 paper Gibson’s Paradox and the Gold Standard co-authored with Robert Barsky, published in the Journal of Political Economy (vol. 96, June 1988, pp. 528-550).

The hubris of bankers such as Summers is stunning. Fixing the price of gold hoping to control interest rates and prices is like fixing the temperature of thermometers hoping to control global warming. Such is the short reach of Summers’ considerable intellect.

EVIL BANKERS FACT OR FICTION?

But the real danger of bankers like Lawrence Summers lies not in their untethered intellect but in their cold ambition and selfish greed that sees nations and people as but living fodder to be milked, used and discarded as they and others profit.

In 1991, Summers issued the following memo while serving as Chief Economist at the World Bank:

…developed countries ought to export more pollution to developing countries because these countries would incur the lowest cost from the pollution in terms of lost wages of people made ill or killed by the pollution due to the fact that wages are so low in developing countries…the economic logic behind dumping a load of toxic waste in the lowest wage country is impeccable and we should face up to that.

As the World Bank’s Chief Economist, Summer’s memo is a chilling reflection of the heartlessness that lies at the core of bankers and banking establishments. The World Bank itself seems to be a favorite watering hole for those of questionable intent.

Robert McNamara, the architect of the Vietnam War was President of the World Bank as was Paul Wolfowitz, the architect of the Iraq War. The current President of the World Bank, Robert Zoellick, is also an ardent supporter of the Iraq War (also on Zoellick’s considerable list of “credits” is his service as advisor to Enron, his membership on the Council on Foreign Relations and Trilateral Commission and his attendance at the secretive Bilderberg meetings from 1991 to the present and his role as Senior International Advisor to investment bank Goldman Sachs).

It is no coincidence that those heading the World Bank are closely associated with America ’s vast war machine. Bankers have profited from fueling the military ambitions of both England and the US for the past two centuries and continue to do so today.

But perhaps the most damning indictment yet of the World Bank and today’s bankers is John Perkins’s Confessions of an Economic Hitman (Barrett Koehler, 2004) in which Perkins reveals the hidden intent of the World Bank and US bankers to cold-bloodedly indebt third world countries such as Argentina and profit by their misery.

In their review of Confessions of an Economic Hitman, Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman write:

Remember Smedley Butler?

He was perhaps the most decorated Major General in Marine Corps history. In the early part of this century, he fought and killed for the United States around the world. Butler was awarded two Congressional Medals of Honor.

Then, when he returned to the United States he wrote a book titled “War Is A Racket” which opens with the memorable lines: “War is a racket. It always has been.”

“I was a high class muscleman for Big Business, for Wall Street and for the Bankers,” Butler said. “In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism.”

In a speech in 1933, Butler said the following:

“I helped make Mexico , especially Tampico , safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. The record of racketeering is long. I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1909-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916. In China I helped to see to it that Standard Oil went its way unmolested.”

Smedley Butler, meet John Perkins.

Perkins has just written a book, “Confessions of an Economic Hit Man” (Barrett Koehler, 2004). It is the War is A Racket for our times. Some of it is hard to believe. You be the judge.

In 1968, after graduating from Boston University , Perkins joined the Peace Corps and was sent to Ecuador . There, he was recruited by the National Security Agency (NSA) and hired by an international consulting firm, Chas. T. Main in Boston.

Soon after beginning his job in Boston , “I was contacted by a woman named Claudine who became my trainer as an economic hit man.” Perkins assumed the woman worked for the NSA.

“She said she was sent to help me and to train me,” Perkins said. “She is extremely beautiful, sensual, seductive, intelligent. Her job was to convince me to become an economic hit man, holding out these three drugs –- sex, drugs and money. And then she wanted to let me know that I was getting into a dirty business. And I shouldn’t go off on my first assignment, which was going to be Indonesia, and start doing this unless I knew that I was going to continue doing it, and once I was in I was in for life.”

Perkins worked for Main from 1970 to 1980. His job was to convince the governments of the third world countries and the banks to make deals where huge loans were given to these countries to develop infrastructure projects. And a condition of the loan was that a large share of the money went back to the big construction companies in the USA – the Bechtels and Halliburtons.

The loans would plunge the countries into debts that would be impossible to pay off.

“The system is set up such that the countries are so deep in debt that they can’t repay their debt,” Perkins said. “When the U.S. government wants favors from them, like votes in the United Nations or troops in Iraq, or in many, many cases, their resources – their oil, their canal, in the case of Panama, we go to them and say – look, you can’t pay off your debts, therefore sell your oil at a very low price to our oil companies. Today, tremendous pressure is being put on Ecuador , for example, to sell off its Amazonian rainforest -– very precious, very fragile places, inhabited by indigenous people whose cultures are being destroyed by the oil companies.”

When a leader of a country refuses to cooperate with economic hit men like Perkins, the jackals from the CIA are called in. Perkins said that both Omar Torrijos of Panama and Jaime Boldos of Ecuador -– both men he worked with – refused to play the game with the U.S. and both were cut down by the CIA -– Torrijos when his airplane blew up, and Roldos when his helicopter exploded, within three months of each other in 1981.

If the CIA jackals don’t do the job, then the U.S. Marines are sent in –- Butler ’s “racketeers for capitalism.”

Perkins also gives lurid details of how he pimped for a Saudi prince in the 1970s, in an effort to get the Saudi royal family to enter an elaborate deal in which the U.S. would protect the House of Saud. In exchange, the Saudis agreed to stabilize oil prices and use their oil money to purchase Treasury bonds, the interest on which would be used to pay U.S. construction firms like Bechtel to build Saudi cities.

For years, Perkins wanted to stop being an economic hit man and write a tell-all book. He quit Main in 1980, only to be lured back with megabucks as a consultant. He testified in favor of the Seabrook Nuclear power plant (“my most infamous assignment”) in the 1980s, but the experience pushed him out of the business, and he started an alternative energy firm.

When word got out in the 1990s that he was starting to write a tell-all book, he was approached by the president of Stone & Webster, a big engineering firm.

Over seven years, Stone & Webster paid Perkins $500,000 to do nothing.

“At that first meeting, the president of the company mentioned some of the books that I had written about indigenous people and said –- that’s nice, that’s fine, keep doing your non-profit work,” Perkins told us. “We approve of that, but you certainly would never write about this industry, would you? And I assured him that I wouldn’t.”

Perkins assumes the money was a bribe to get him not to write the book.

But he has written the book.

You be the judge.

Evil bankers? Fact or Fiction? You be the judge.

DEFAULT OR JUST DEADBEATS

While Reinhart’s and Rogoff’s work on sovereign default is worthwhile and important, their glaring avoidance of the geopolitical aspect of credit flows from England and the US to Latin America and other developing regions is indicative of the blind eye scholars turn to the activities of those who pay them.

Lawrence Summers was President of Harvard University where Kenneth Rogoff is now employed. It is not likely those who hired the likes of Summers would look kindly upon Rogoff should he begin asking questions whose answers would lead to truths Harvard’s trustees would rather not see the light of day.

So instead of dealing with the critical issues raised by John Perkins, Reinhart and Rogoff consider the phenomena of sovereign defaults as an innocent rite of passage much like high school through which developing economies must pass. Perhaps it is so, perhaps not.

But their “trained” eye wanders a bit, even to an untrained eye such as mine. According to Reinhart and Rogoff, the US is a “default virgin”, sic the US has never missed a debt repayment or rescheduled on at least one occasion. While this is strictly so, the US is nonetheless at the center of the largest default in monetary history.

In the 1970s, the US defaulted on its gold obligations under the Bretton-Woods Agreement. After overspending the greatest hoard of gold in history, 21,775 tons, between 1949 and 1971, the US had 7,000-8,000 tons of gold left and still owed perhaps over 31,000 tons to others.

In 1973, when the US officially refused to convert US dollars held by other countries to gold, it was the biggest monetary default ever. In that one act, as a consequence the entire global monetary system shifted from a gold-based system to a fiat-paper system.

Of the US default on its gold obligations, Professor Antal Fekete wrote in June 2008:

http://www.professorfekete....

Thirty-five years ago gold, symbol of permanence, was chased out from the Monetary Garden of Eden , replaced by the floating irredeemable dollar as the pillar of the international monetary system. That’s right: a floating pillar. The gold demonetization exercise was a farce. It was designed as a fig leaf to cover up the ugly default of the U.S. government on its gold-redeemable sight obligations to foreigners. The word ‘default’ itself was put under taboo even though it punctured big holes in the balance sheet of every central bank of the world, as its dollar-denominated assets sank in value in terms of anything but the dollar itself. These banks were not even allowed to say ‘ouch’ as they were looking at the damage to their balance sheets caused by the default. They just had to swallow the loss, obediently and dutifully join the singing of the Hallelujah Chorus of sycophants in Washington praising the irredeemable dollar and the Nirvana of synthetic credit.

Debt virgin? Hardly, and whether the US defaulted or not is not just a question of semantics, it is a matter of truth—which, like credit, is now surprisingly hard to come by.

THIS TIME IT’S DIFFERENT

Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff’s paper, This Time It’s Different , refers to the idea that sovereign defaults are a thing of the past. That we have somehow fixed what was wrong and it won’t happen again. Reinhart and Rogoff think otherwise.

But this time, in a different way it really is different. This time default will come to both banker and debtor alike. The bankers’ system itself is now collapsing under the weight of debt that the bankers’ debt-based money has produced.

Banks are finding themselves increasingly bankrupt as are the governments the bankers used to debase the world’s currencies. This time, not only will Argentina possibly suffer another sovereign default, so too will its creditor, the US , as will many of the US banks that issued that debt.

The default of the US will remain, however, outside the limited definition of default used by Reinhart and Rogoff. The US will not miss a payment or reschedule its debt. Unlike Argentina , the US prints the currency in which the Argentine and US debt is denominated. The US will print its way out of its debts. Argentina cannot.

Because of the enormity of the US debt, the amount of dollars necessary to print to pay down the debt will lead to the hyperinflation in the US and the destruction of the US dollar. Those who live by the sword sometimes die by the sword—though not often.

In that same article where Professor Kotlikoff estimated US liabilities to be $65.9 trillion, Kotlikoff also wrote:

The United States ..appears to be running the same type of fiscal policies that engendered hyperinflations in 20 countries over the past century.

Maybe this time it isn’t different..

DON’T CRY FOR ME ARGENTINA

SAVE YOUR TEARS FOR YOURSELF

In 1976, the Argentine military overthrew the democratically elected Argentine government. The first to recognize the dictatorship was the US . The second was the International Monetary Fund, and within 24 hours of recognizing the soon-to-be most brutal regime in recent history, the IMF arranged a loan to the military junta.

At the time, Argentina ’s external debt totaled $7 billion. When the bloody dictatorship ended with the return of democracy six years later, Argentina ’s debt totaled $43 billion, a debt owed mainly to US banks.

The common law concept of caveat emptor has particular relevance here, caveat emptor —Latin, “let the buyer beware", is a legal precept that buyers must take responsibility for the conditions under which the sale was made.

If you loan to a dictatorship, don’t expect to be repaid if a democracy emerges.

Richard Perle, former US Assistant Secretary of Defense and neoconservative lobbyist

Richard Perle who supported the Iraq War said those words shortly after the US invaded Iraq . While it is doubtful Perle believes the same applies for debts incurred by the US supported dictatorship in Argentina , the truth of Perle’s words extend beyond Perle’s situational principles or a lack thereof. In a court of law, an illegal contract cannot be enforced—unless, of course, the court has been bought off.

A critical distinction between the debt “owed” by Argentina and the debts owed by the US is that Argentina’s debt was illegally imposed upon Argentina by the IMF, the US and international bankers without the consent of the Argentine citizenry, The US debt, however, was incurred with the consent of the American people—or was it?

That, my fellow Americans, is a $99.2 trillion question.

BANKRUPT BE THE BONDS THAT BIND

Americans with their outstanding obligations now measured in trillions of dollars of outstanding US bonds have much in common with the Argentine people. We have both been enslaved and bankrupted by the same financial system.

While it is impossible for the debt burdened Argentines to do something about US banks, it is not impossible for Americans to do so. The US Federal Reserve Bank—the largest emitter of debt-based money in the world—while not an official US government agency is nonetheless still subject to the rules and laws of our land.

STIRRINGS IN THE ELECTORATE

Dissatisfaction, the beginning of change, is now occurring. The two political polarities are finally awakening to the fact that both have been callously used by those in power. The US has lurched right then left then right again, but it continues to go in the same disturbing direction, a direction now equally distasteful to those on the left and on the right.

In modern democracies, successful politicians must possess two qualities: They must say what the people want to hear and they must do what those in power want done.

It has been easy to manipulate those on the right as well as those on the left. The Republicans and Democrats have done so for years. But where’s the beef? The nation’s finances have been even more badly managed by the Republicans than the Democrats—and Iraq ? Sure, vote for the Democrats and stay mired in a conflict they promised they would end.

Both parties are controlled by the same money, the same money that now controls global governments and institutions such as the World Bank and the IMF, the same money that buys politicians, scholars, the military, lawyers, TV anchors, radio talk show hosts and anyone else whose influence they can use for their own ends.

There is a reason why we are indebted as we are and there is a reason why we are mired in a war that one wants except the few that do, the few that now control our nation and many others. In the midst of this most unreasonable world, there are reasons—whether you want to know them or not.

Humanity now finds itself at the beginning of a profound shift, a shift that will force us—if we are to survive, if we are to triumph—to put aside our differences to accomplish together what we obviously cannot accomplish apart.

The two political polarities must find common ground or they will soon find there is no ground at all. What is happening is bigger than money and power although it involves both. It involves humanity, it involves all of us and unless we find each other we will soon find there will be nothing left to find at all.

We are closer to the end than to the beginning. Keep your own counsel. Buy gold and silver. Keep the faith.

In Argentina , I read in a recent issue of Scientific American that physicists now believe that in the beginning of time the Universe was only one centimeter across. That knowledge heartened me. We have come a long way.

_______________________

www.marketoracle.co.uk/

The Market Oracle is a FREE Daily Financial Markets Analysis & Forecasting online publication.

We present in-depth analysis from over 150 experienced analysts on a range of views of the probable direction of the financial markets. Thus enabling our readers to arrive at an informed opinion on future market direction.

Inside Edition Smears Jones For Malkin Confrontation

Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet
Thursday, August 28, 2008

Despite promises to remain impartial and tell the truth about what really happened, Inside Edition unsurprisingly characterized Alex Jones’ DNC confrontation of Michelle Malkin as a “hateful attack,” while the Dallas Morning News engaged in outright libel by claiming Jones had chanted “kill Michelle Malkin,” a brazen lie that is still doing the rounds on neo-con blogs.

Alex Jones and his crew filmed their meeting with the Inside Edition team and it was broadcast live on the Internet yesterday. The Inside Edition reporters were uninterested in footage which clearly shows provocateurs completely unaffiliated with Alex Jones chanting inflammatory statements, as well as Malkin’s own photographer making a false report to Denver police claiming Jones had made death threats toward Malkin and punched her bodyguard, when her bodyguard is on tape assaulting Jones and his crew.

Inside Edition characterized the incident as a “hateful attack” on Malkin, the poor little victim, while failing to explain any of the reasons behind why Jones confronted her in the first place - namely the fact that she is an advocate of torture, runs defense for puppy killers, and argues in her own book that dissidents and other undesirables, including Arab-Americans, should be rounded up and jailed in internment camps.

The Inside Edition blerb describes Malkin as a “conservative author and political commentator,” while it labels Jones as a “controversial radio personality” who “ranted and raved” and engaged in “virulent verbal bashing” while “on the attack”.

Sounds about as fair and balanced as Fox News.

Did Alex Jones shout at Michelle Malkin? During some parts of the incident yes, during others he attempted to talk to her rationally. The point is, Inside Edition, as well as every other establishment press outlet that has reported on the incident, has uniformly failed to highlight why Michelle Malkin deserved every earful she got.

An Associated Content article describes Malkin as, “A short, attractive, pleasant lady of Philippine descent.”

Pleasant? This is the same woman who went too far even for Bill O’Reilly’s liking when she infamously proclaimed “boo-hoo!” in response to news that Guantanamo Bay detainees (many of whom are innocent children) had killed themselves.

Just look at what even arch-neo-con Geraldo Rivera had to say about her.

“Michelle Malkin is the most vile, hateful commentator I’ve ever met in my life. She actually believes that neighbors should start snitching out neighbors, and we should be deporting people. It’s good she’s in D.C. and I’m in NY. I’d spit on her if I saw her.”

Malkin’s journalistic prowess has been off-target so many times that her website, Hot Air, is a laughing stock on the Internet.

In November 2006, Malkin embarked on a campaign to question the existence of an Iraqi policeman, Jamil Hussein, who has been used as a source by the Associated Press. Hussein turned out to be very real and Malkin was forced to retract her bizarre inference that he was imaginary.

Likewise, when footage emerged of Marines throwing a puppy off a cliff in Iraq, Malkin suggested that the puppy was in fact already dead or even a CGI-manipulated fake. The fact that the Marines who admitted killing the puppy were later disciplined and expelled by the Marine Corps was quietly ignored and no retraction appeared on her website.

In May 2008, Malkin claimed that a Dunkin’ Donuts commercial was terrorist propaganda because it featured a woman wearing a neck scarf.

The Associated Content piece again attempts to smear Jones by claiming a mob affiliated with him chanted “kill Michelle Malkin,” when the individuals involved were actually provocateurs which were then cited by Malkin’s stooge in a false report he made to Denver police claiming Alex Jones was threatening Malkin.

The Dallas Morning News went one further. In a blog that appears on the DMN website, radio host Mark Davis claims it was Jones himself who chanted “Kill Michelle Malkin!” - a completely false and libelous charge. Respondents to the blog are advising the Dallas Morning News to call their lawyers and prepare for a pretty expensive lawsuit. A full retraction and apology has not been issued at time of press.

Neo-Con news outlets continue to embarrass themselves by falsely claiming that Jones or people affiliated with him advocated the murder of Michelle Malkin. In doing so they are only shaming themselves and letting everyone know exactly what they are - lying hacks whose only agenda is to smear those that dare question their jack-booted propagandist Fox News idols like Michelle Malkin.

Last Updated: 9:33AM BST 17 Aug 2008

In many cases information is kept by companies such as banks and shops, but in certain circumstances they can be asked to hand it over to a range of legal authorities Photo: ANTHONY UPTON

_________________________

With every telephone call, swipe of a card and click of a mouse, information is being recorded, compiled and stored about Britain's citizens.

An investigation by The Sunday Telegraph has now uncovered just how much personal data is being collected about individuals by the Government, law enforcement agencies and private companies each day.

In one week, the average person living in Britain has 3,254 pieces of personal information stored about him or her, most of which is kept in databases for years and in some cases indefinitely.

The data include details about shopping habits, mobile phone use, emails, locations during the day, journeys and internet searches.

In many cases this information is kept by companies such as banks and shops, but in certain circumstances they can be asked to hand it over to a range of legal authorities.

Britain's information watchdog, the Information Commissioner's Office, has called for tighter regulation of the amount of data held about citizens and urged the public to restrict the information they allow organisations to hold on them.

This newspaper's findings come days after the Government published plans to grant local authorities and other public bodies access to the email and internet records of millions. Phone companies already retain data about their customers and give it to 650 public bodies on request.

The loss of data by Government departments, including an incident where HM Revenue and Customs mislaid computer disks containing the personal details of 25 million people, has heightened concerns about the amount of information being stored.

David Smith, deputy information commissioner, said: "As more and more information is collected and kept on all of us, we are very concerned that appropriate safeguards go along with that.

"People should know what is happening with their information and have a choice.

"Our concern is that what is kept with the justification of preventing and detecting terrorism, can then be used for minor purposes such as pursuing people for parking fines."

Earlier this year the Commons home affairs select committee recommended new controls and regulations on the accumulation of information by the state.

Mobile phones

Every day the average person makes three mobile phone calls and sends at least two text messages.

Each time the network provider logs information about who was called as well as the caller's location and direction of travel, worked out by triangulation from phone masts.

Customers can also have their locations tracked even when they are not using their phones, as the devices send out unique identifying signals at regular intervals.

All of this information can be accessed by police and other public authorities investigating crimes.

The internet

Internet service providers (ISPs) compile information about their customers when they go online, including name, address, the unique identification number for the connection, known as an IP address, any browser used and location.

They also keep details of emails, such as whom they were sent to, together with the date and time they were sent. An average of 50 websites are visited and 32 emails sent per person in Britain every day.

Privacy campaigners have expressed concern that the country's three biggest ISPs – BT, Virgin Media and TalkTalk – now provide this data to a digital advertising company called Phorm so that it can analyse web surfing habits.

ISPs are already voluntarily providing information they hold about their customers if requested by law enforcement agencies and public authorities. A consultation published last week by the Government would make it a legal requirement for ISPs to provide a customer's personal information when requested. A total of 520,000 requests were made by public officials for telephone and internet details last year, an increase from around 350,000 the previous year.

Internet search engines also compile data about their users, including the IP address and what was searched for. Google receives around 68 searches from the average person each day and stores this data for 18 months.

Dr Ian Brown, a research fellow on privacy at Oxford University, said: "Companies such as Google and internet service providers are building up huge databases of data about internet users.

"These companies may be compelled, through a legal action, to hand over this information to third parties or the Government, or the companies may lose the data and it can then be misused."

Loyalty cards

Store "loyalty" cards also retain large amounts of information about individuals who have signed up to use them. They link a person's personal details to the outlets used, the transaction times and how much is spent.

In the case of Nectar cards, which are used by more than 10 million people in Britain once a week, information from dozens of shops is compiled, giving a detailed picture of a cardholder's shopping habits.

A spokesman for Loyalty Management UK, which runs the Nectar programme, insisted that information about the items bought was not compiled, but some partners in the scheme, such as Sainsbury's, use their till records to compile that information.

She admitted that the personal information that is compiled under the Nectar scheme is kept indefinitely until individuals close their account and ask for their information to be destroyed. In criminal inquiries, police can request the details held by Nectar.

Banks

Banks can also be required to hand over personal account information to the authorities if requested as part of an investigation.

They also provide personal data to credit reference agencies, debt collectors and fraud prevention organisations.

Debit and credit card transactions can give information about where and on what people are spending their money.

CCTV

The biggest source of surveillance in Britain is through the network of CCTV (closed-circuit television) cameras. On average, an individual will appear on 300 CCTV cameras during a day and those tapes are kept by many organisations for indefinite lengths of time.

On the London Underground network, Transport for London (TfL) keeps footage for a minimum of 14 days. TfL operates more than 8,500 CCTV cameras in its underground stations, 1,550 cameras on tube trains and up to 60,000 cameras on buses.

Network Rail refused to say how many CCTV cameras it operates or for how long the footage is kept.

Britain now has more CCTV cameras in public spaces than any other country in the world. A study in 2002 estimated that there were around 4.2 million cameras, but that number is likely to now be far higher.

Number plate recognition

The latest development in CCTV is the increased use of automatic number plate recognition systems, which read number-plates and search databases for signs that a vehicle has been used in crime.

A national automatic number plate recognition system is maintained by the Association of Chief Police Officers along motorways and main roads. Every number plate picked up by the system is stored in a database with date, time and location for two years.

Public transport

Travel passes such as the Oyster Card used in London and the Key card, in Oxford, can also reveal remarkable amounts of information about an individual. When they are registered to a person's name, they record journey history, dates, times and fares.

A spokesman for TfL, which runs the Oyster Card system, insisted that access to this information was restricted to its customer services agents.

Police, however, can also obtain this information and have used Oyster Card journey records as evidence in criminal cases.

The workplace

Employers are increasingly using radio-tagged security passes for employees, providing them with information about when staff enter and leave the office.

______________________

Further Reading:

Wednesday, July 2, 2008

'I've Got Nothing to Hide' and Other Misunderstandings of Privacy Paper

Here is a long but really good paper countering the "I have nothing to hide" argument.

From the abstract:

" In this short essay, written for a symposium in the San Diego Law Review, Professor Daniel Solove examines the nothing to hide argument. When asked about government surveillance and data mining, many people respond by declaring: "I've got nothing to hide." According to the nothing to hide argument, there is no threat to privacy unless the government uncovers unlawful activity, in which case a person has no legitimate justification to claim that it remain private. The nothing to hide argument and its variants are quite prevalent, and thus are worth addressing. In this essay, Solove critiques the nothing to hide argument and exposes its faulty underpinnings."

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3...

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_J._Solove

Or read it on this website: www.scribd.com/doc/187225/Ive-Got-Nothing-To-Hide -And-Other-Misunderstandings-of-Privacy

Neo-Con Media Whores Still Can’t Get Facts Straight On Malkin Incident

Blow hard blogs still parrot lie that Jones advocated violence against Malkin in coordinated defamation campaign

Neo-Con media whores are still having difficulty getting their facts straight on Alex Jones’ confrontation of Michelle Malkin on Monday at the DNC, and remain persistent with their bald faced lie that Jones advocated violence against the columnist.

“If you repeat a lie long enough, and loud enough, it becomes truth,” said Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels, and it appears as though Neo-Con bloggers have taken the words of one of their heroes to heart.

That’s right - drooling, Mom’s basement dwelling, fake right-wing hacks are still reporting that Alex Jones and/or his supporters shouted “kill Michelle Malkin” even after we exposed the individuals concerned to be agent provocateurs intent on demonizing legitimate protesters by making inflammatory statements.

Malkin herself appeared on Fox and Friends, the show that regularly serves up a morning diet of mindless celebrity bile along with Neo-Con talking points and anti-American propaganda, to discuss the incident with the ever willing brownshirt propagandist host Steve Doocy, who continued to lump in Re-Create 68 provocateurs with the distinctly different 9/11 truth movement.

Watch the clip.

“In a sorry attempt to re-create Abbie Hoffman’s satirical stunt aimed at levitating the Pentagon, a dozen Re-create ‘68 stragglers dressed up like the cast of Harry Potter, wielded magic wands and joined hands to float the Denver Mint,” writes Malkin in her syndicated column today. “The Mint stayed firmly on the ground. To salvage the abysmal turnout, an unhinged contingent of 9/11 conspiracy theorists started barking at me. One buffoon shouted, “Kill Michelle Malkin,” while the levitation experts chanted, “Peace and Justice!” and a wizard paraded around in his “Arrest Bush” T-shirt with Che Guevara promoters tossing fake quarters in the air.”

“Desperate to salvage the fizzled demonstration, 9/11 nutball Alex Jones started barking at me and attempting to make a scene and incite a riot,” Malkin further elaborates.

The foundation of Malkin’s riposte, that Alex Jones decided to confront her in order to salvage a failed protest, is nothing more than a bald faced lie. The Denver Mint protest was wholly organized and attended by members of Re-Create 68, and not by “9/11 conspiracy theorists”.

Indeed, the 9/11 truth movement’s shutdown of Chris Matthews’ MSNBC show was a wild success, in comparison to the pathetic spectacle of the phony left-wing group Re-Create 68, adorned in ludicrous wizard outfits, and their self-defeating attempts to “levitate” the Denver Mint.

Malkin’s feigned outrage may fool Fox News’ rapidly declining number of geriatric viewers, but the real outrage is the fact that this anti-American piece of filth is still given a platform after she wrote a book advocating government critics, Muslims and other designated undesirables be put in internment camps. Malkin is also a staunch torture advocate and likes to spend her time defending people who kill puppies. Nice lady. When Alex Jones called her a “monster” he was doing her a favor. The real depth of this little bitch’s evil cannot be expressed by mere words alone.

Another blow-hard who can’t get his facts straight is Andrew Bolt of the Australian Herald Sun, who writes on his blog, ”Kill Michelle Malkin!” Just another peace protest. The puffed-up thug at the head of the mob, some of whom shout death threats against Malkin, is radio “host” Alex Jones.”

The fact that those shouting “Kill Michelle Malkin” were also screaming “Alex Jones is a capitalist stooge” goes ignored by Bolt, who lumps in Re-Create 68’s provocateurs with Jones, seemingly satisfied with spewing a one sentence hit piece rather than telling the truth about the incident.

Dozens of phony conservative right-wing blogs have parroted the “kill Michelle Malkin” ad hominem smear attack, in most cases without retractions. Respondents to such articles have largely attacked the writers as having got the facts completely backward, but the lie continues to be replicated.

Also overlooked is the fact that one of Michelle Malkin’s stooges is caught on tape lying to police in an attempt to frame Alex Jones, claiming that Alex punched her bodyguard and shouted death threats, when in reality Malkin’s bodyguard assaulted Alex and his crew, and the death threats were made by provocateurs completely unaffiliated with Alex Jones.

We are also forced to stomach yellow tabloid headlines like “Mint Levitation Event Degenerates into Attack on Woman” and “Blogger Michelle Malkin Attacked in Denver near DNC08″ - quite how shouting at someone constitutes an “attack” is not explained. Another article frames it as a “mob attack on conservative commentator Michelle Malkin”. In reality, the only people engaged in violence and assault were Malkin’s self-appointed bodyguards, who elbowed and shoved Jones and his crew. One particularly aggressive character was the guy in the black Darth Vader shirt and glasses shown behind Malkin in the following picture. He physically assaulted both Jones and his cameraman Rob Jacobson.

“This is the second time that a Fox News commentator has been accosted by members of Recreate 68 since convention festivities began Sunday,” continues the article. Wrong again. Alex Jones is not a member of Re-Create 68 and in fact has been harassed constantly by them all week.

“Jones, accompanied by little more than a handful of protesters that showed up for the event were documented chanting “Kill Michelle Malkin,” only moments after chanting their previous refrain of “Love! Peace! Justice!” claims another blog.

As we pointed out, the provocateurs chanting “Kill Michelle Malkin” were part of a group who had that same day attempted to bullhorn Alex Jones himself, but the guilt-by-association smear tactic is woven seamlessly into the hit piece.

We are putting neo-con blogs on notice - any attempt to imply that Alex Jones advocates violence against Michelle Malkin - when such comments were clearly made by individuals who had no connection to Alex Jones - will be judged on a case by case basis and defamation charges will be considered should any consequences arise from these lies.

Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet
Wednesday, August 27, 2008

www.prisonplanet.com/neo-con-media-whores-still-c ant-get-facts-straight-on-malkin-incident.html

Army opens prep school for dropouts to fill ranks

SUSANNE M. SCHAFER
Associated Press
August 27, 2008

FORT JACKSON, S.C. (AP) — Austin Swarner left high school to care for his mother while she fought a losing battle with cancer. Tony Brown wanted to begin supporting himself and left two classes shy of a diploma. Haelee Holden got tired of trying to make it through school while flipping burgers until 1 a.m.

But the U.S. Army, eager to fill its ranks amid wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, doesn’t see them as dropouts. They are recruits who only need a GED before they’re ready to begin basic training.

And so, the Army formally opens its first prep school Wednesday.

“It’s academic immersion,” explained Col. Jeffrey Sanderson, chief of staff at Fort Jackson, home of the Army’s largest basic training school. “Our studies show that with only three out of every 10 people of military age being capable of joining the Army, we are going to have to do something different.”

That includes turning six World War II-era buildings at the base into a mini-campus of spartan classrooms and barracks. Under the yearlong pilot project, classes of about 60 soldiers will enter the monthlong program every week.

Their day begins in uniform at 5 a.m. with physical training. Then they attend about eight hours of academic review classes, followed by homework each evening. An hour of marching drills and military discipline is thrown in for good measure.

"It's a tough, structured day. Some of them have sat on the couch for 18 years, but I haven't heard any howling yet," said social studies instructor John Solis, one of 14 certified teachers on hand. "By and large, they are chomping at the bit; they are ready to go."

The soldiers work in small classrooms outfitted with simple desks, chairs, and dry-erase boards. In-desk computers are used for test-taking. Grouped three to four to a class, the students hunch over special GED preparation books, working on basic math, social studies and reading selections.

Recruits must score in the top half of the Army's aptitude test to qualify for the prep school and get two tries at a General Educational Development certificate. If they still can't pass, the Army will release them from their contract, Sanderson said.

He said the Army prefers those who graduate from high school on their own, because it demonstrates "tenacity." But the reality of current graduation rates has the Army pressed to find an alternative, Sanderson explained.

Holden, 18, of Medford, Ore., is racing through her first week of practice tests before taking a formal GED exam soon. She left home at 16, one of nine children of a mill worker, and wants to be a military police officer.

"There's no jobs out there, nothing. It's just horrible. And it got hard just trying to support myself and go to school at the same time," Holden said.

Swarner, a native of Baton Rouge, La., left school in the ninth grade. Now 20, he dreams of becoming a combat engineer.

With the small classes, hovering teachers and a disciplined schedule, Swarner said he's learning quickly.

"The teachers here are helping a lot. My best class is English, the hardest is probably the math," he said.

With the GED behind them, Swarner and his classmates will enter basic training at Fort Jackson, where more than half of all incoming male soldiers and more than 80 percent of female recruits go through basic combat training. Others will go to one of the Army's three other basic training sites.

Those entering prep school have signed on for a two- to four-year stint, just like any new recruit.

"We have two missions: get the GED and prepare them physically and mentally for basic training," said the school's commander, Capt. Brian Gaddis.

Last October, Army officials said they intended to expand the force by adding 74,000 soldiers by 2010, with the active duty force growing to a total of 547,000.

But Sanderson said the Army's own studies show that only 3 in 10 people ages 17 to 24 are eligible to enlist, with the remainder barred by health or legal issues, or the failure to earn a high school diploma or equivalent.

A study issued by the National Priorities Project released in January found that while the Army has a goal that 90 percent of recruits be high school graduates, it hadn't met that percentage since 2004. In the 2007 budget year, the Project found that only 71 percent of soldiers entering the service had graduated.

Gaddis said he knows his students might have quit high school, but believes that shouldn't be held against them. He added that the school is a move to reach those who have been left behind, not to attract those who are less qualified or lower than the Army's standards.

"These kids may have quit at some point, but the big thing is, a lot of people have quit on them," Gaddis said. "We are not going to allow them to quit."

www.youtube.com/watch

Watch as Chris Matthews' MSNBC Hardball at the Denver DNC is taken over by Alex Jones and We Are Change Colorado. "9/11 Was an Inside Job" chants can be heard as loud as the program's hosts thanks to Jones' bullhorn. For more information on the 9/11 information that the corporate controlled media won't talk about, visit

http://www.infowars.com

For more information about what's happening at the Denver DNC, and truth activism in general, visit:

http://wearechange.org

For more news and information free of corporate control, visit:

http://www.corbettreport.co...

 9/11 Truth Will Prevail!!!!

Will Authorities Stage Riots In Denver?

Protesters need to be wary about history of authorities using agent provocateurs to demonize legitimate demonstrators and justify violence

Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet
Monday, August 25, 2008

www.prisonplanet.com/will-authorities-stage-riots -in-denver.html

The major question hanging over the Democratic National Convention, which starts in Denver today, is whether or not authorities will follow the lead of previous mass protest events, and actively stage violence to justify a brutal crackdown on legitimate demonstrators.

Last year after an incident during the SPP summit in Montebello Canada, Quebec provincial authorities were forced to admit that three rock-wielding mask-wearing “anarchists” were in fact police infiltrators used to gather information on protesters.

Police even went to great lengths to stage arrests of the agent provocateurs after they were outed as undercover cops by genuine protesters.

After initial photographs showed the “anarchists” wearing the same standard issue boots as the cops, debunkers attempted to dismiss the issue, but were forced to eat humble pie when authorities were eventually backed into a corner and had to admit that cops were dressed up as “black bloc” anarchists and used to spy on protesters.

Watch the video. www.youtube.com/watch

The so-called “black bloc” anarchists are completely infiltrated and controlled by the security services and are routinely employed at major protest events to cause riots and demonize legitimate peaceful protesters.

In Seattle in 1999 at the World Trade Organization meeting, the authorities declared a state of emergency, imposed curfews and resorted to nothing short of police state tactics in response to a small minority of hostile black bloc hooligans. In his film Police State 2, Alex Jones covered the fact that the police allowed the black bloc to run riot in downtown Seattle while they concentrated on preventing the movement of peaceful protestors. The film presents clear evidence that the left-wing anarchist groups are actually controlled by the state and used to demonize peaceful protesters. 

www.youtube.com/watch

www.youtube.com/watch

www.youtube.com/watch

At the WTO protests in Genoa 2001 a protestor was killed after being shot in the head and run over twice by a police vehicle. The Italian Carabinere also later beat on peaceful protestors as they slept, and even tortured some, at the Diaz School. It later emerged that the police fabricated evidence against the protesters, claiming they were anarchist rioters, to justify their actions. Some Carabiniere officials have since come forward to say they knew of infiltration of the so called black bloc anarchists, and that fellow officers acted as agent provocateurs.

At the Free Trade Area of Americas protests in Miami in late November 2003, more provocateuring was evident. The United Steelworkers of America calling for a congressional investigation, stated that the police intentionally caused violence and arrested and charged hundreds of peaceful protestors. The USWA suggested that billions of dollars supposedly slated for Iraq reconstruction funds are actually being used to subsidize “homeland repression” in America.

As events unfold in Denver demonstrators need to be wary of this history and make every attempt to film black bloc anarchists who are intent on causing violence and find out if they are under police protection. The future of maintaining the right to peaceably assemble and exercise the first amendment rests on the exposure of authorities using agent provocateurs to stage violence and demonize legitimate protesters.

 _______________________

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agent_provocateur

www.answers.com/topic/agent-provocateur

n., pl. a·gents pro·vo·ca·teurs (http://content.answers.com/... 'PronunciationKey', 'height=650,width=520,resizable,scrollbars');if(p w){pw.focus();}" class="pointer" style="color: blue;">ă-zhäN' prô-vô'kä-tœr').

A person employed to associate with suspected individuals or groups with the purpose of inciting them to commit acts that will make them liable to punishment.

[French : agent, agent + provocateur, instigator.]

August 21, 2008

vdare.com/buchanan/080821_treason.htm

And None Dare Call It Treason—McCain Advisor's Georgia Connection

By Patrick J. Buchanan 

Who is Randy Scheunemann?

He is the principal foreign policy adviser to John McCain and potential successor to Henry Kissinger and Zbigniew Brzezinski as national security adviser to the president of the United States.

But Randy Scheunemann has another identity, another role.

He is a dual loyalist, a foreign agent whose assignment is to get America committed to spilling the blood of her sons for client regimes who have made this moral mercenary a rich man.

From January 2007 to March 2008, the McCain campaign paid Scheunemann $70,000—pocket change compared to the $290,000 his Orion Strategies banked in those same 15 months from the Georgian regime of Mikheil Saakashvili.

What were Mikheil's marching orders to Tbilisi's man in Washington? Get Georgia a NATO war guarantee. Get America committed to fight Russia, if necessary, on behalf of Georgia.

Scheunemann came close to succeeding.

Had he done so, U.S. soldiers and Marines from Idaho and West Virginia would be killing Russians in the Caucasus, and dying to protect Scheunemann's client, who launched this idiotic war the night of Aug. 7. That people like Scheunemann hire themselves out to put American lives on the line for their clients is a classic corruption of American democracy.

U.S. backing for his campaign to retrieve his lost provinces is what Saakashvili paid Scheunemann to produce. But why should Americans fight Russians to force 70,000 South Ossetians back into the custody of a regime they detest? Why not let the South Ossetians decide their own future in free elections?

Not only is the folly of the Bush interventionist policy on display in the Caucasus, so, too, is its manifest incoherence.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates says we have sought for 45 years to stay out of a shooting war with Russia and we are not going to get into one now. President Bush assured us there will be no U.S. military response to the Russian move into Georgia.

That is a recognition of, and a bowing to, reality—namely, that Russia's control of South Ossetia and Abkhazia and occupation of a strip of Georgia cannot be a casus belli for the United States. We may deplore it, but it cannot justify war with Russia.

If that be true, and it transparently is, what are McCain, Barack Obama, Bush, and German Chancellor Angela Merkel doing committing the United States and Germany to bringing Georgia into NATO? For that would commit us to war for a cause we have already conceded, by our paralysis, does not justify a war.

Not only did Scheunemann's two-man lobbying firm receive $730,000 since 2001 to get Georgia a NATO war guarantee, he was paid by Romania and Latvia to do the same. And he succeeded.

Latvia, a tiny Baltic republic annexed by Joseph Stalin in June 1940 during his pact with Adolf Hitler, was set free at the end of the Cold War. Yet hundreds of thousands of Russians had been moved into Latvia by Stalin, and as Riga served as a base of the Baltic Sea fleet, many Russian naval officers retired there.

The children and grandchildren of these Russians are Latvian citizens. They are a cause of constant tension with ethnic Letts and of strife with Moscow, which has assumed the role of protector of Russians left behind in the "near abroad" when the Soviet Union broke apart.

Thanks to the lobbying of Scheunemann and friends, Latvia has been brought into NATO and given a U.S. war guarantee. If Russia intervenes to halt some nasty ethnic violence in Riga, the United States is committed to come in and drive the Russians out.

This is the situation in which the interventionists have placed our country: committed to go to war for countries and causes that do not justify war, against a Russia that is re-emerging as a great power only to find NATO squatting on her doorstep.

Scheunemann's resume as a War Party apparatchik is lengthy. He signed the PNAC (Project for the New American Century) letter to President Clinton urging war on Iraq, four years before 9-11. He signed the PNAC ultimatum to Bush, nine days after 9-11, threatening him with political reprisal if he did not go to war against Iraq. He was executive director of the "Committee for the Liberation of Iraq," a propaganda front for Ahmad Chalabi and his pack of liars who deceived us into war.

Now Scheunemann is the neocon agent in place in McCain's camp.

The neocons got their war with Iraq. They are pushing for war on Iran. And they are now baiting the Russian Bear.

Is this what McCain has on offer? Endless war?

Why would McCain seek foreign policy counsel from the same discredited crowd that has all but destroyed the presidency of George Bush?

"Against the insidious wiles of foreign influence ... a free people ought to be constantly awake," Washington warned in his Farewell Address. Our Founding Father was warning against the Randy Scheunemanns among us, agents hired by foreign powers to deceive Americans into fighting their wars. And none dare call it treason.

Patrick J. Buchanan needs no introduction to VDARE.COM readers; his book State of Emergency: The Third World Invasion and Conquest of America, can be ordered from Amazon.com. His latest book is Churchill, Hitler, and "The Unnecessary War": How Britain Lost Its Empire and the West Lost the World, reviewed here by Paul Craig Roberts.

_________________________

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pat_Buchanan

Patrick Joseph "Pat" Buchanan (born November 2, 1938) is an American politician, author, syndicated columnist and broadcaster. Buchanan was a senior adviser to American presidents Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, and Ronald Reagan, and was an original host on CNN's Crossfire. He sought the Republican presidential nomination in 1992 and 1996. He ran on the Reform Party ticket in the 2000 presidential election.

He co-founded The American Conservative magazine and launched a paleoconservative foundation named The American Cause. He has been published in Human Events, National Review, The Nation and Rolling Stone. He is currently a political commentator on the MSNBC cable network including the show Race for the White House and a regular on The McLaughlin Group and sometime guest on Hannity and Colmes on American television.

• 1 Personal life
• 2 Professional career
  • 2.1 St. Louis Globe-Democrat Editorial Writer
  • 2.2 Work for the Nixon White House
  • 2.3 News Commentator
  • 2.4 Work for the Reagan White House
• 3 Political Career
  • 3.1 1992 Presidential Primaries
  • 3.2 Off the campaign trail
  • 3.3 1996 Presidential Primaries
  • 3.4 2000 Presidential Campaign
• 4 Return to private life
  • 4.1 MSNBC Commentator
  • 4.2 The American Conservative Magazine
• 5 Republican Politics Today
• 6 Foreign Policy
• 7 Roman Catholicism
• 8 Social conservatism
  • 8.1 Culture war
  • 8.2 Abortion and Euthanasia
  • 8.3 Education and faith
  • 8.4 Homosexuality and AIDS
  • 8.5 Feminism
  • 8.6 Guns and Crime
• 9 National identity and immigration reform
  • 9.1 Assimilation and National Security
  • 9.2 Race
  • 9.3 Platform
• 10 Racial issues
  • 10.1 Civil rights, crime, and immigration
  • 10.2 American Civil War
  • 10.3 Martin Luther King, Jr.
• 11 Global affairs
• 12 Environmental protection
  • 12.1 Environmentalism, property rights and trade
  • 12.2 Animal welfare
• 13 Israel and accusations of anti-Semitism
  • 13.1 Hitler, World War II and the Holocaust
    • 13.1.1 "Great courage" controversy
    • 13.1.2 Charles Lindbergh
    • 13.1.3 Iwan Demjanjuk
  • 13.2 U.S.-Israel Policy
    • 13.2.1 A Palestinian State
  • 13.3 Terrorism and 9/11
  • 13.4 Iraq
    • 13.4.1 Lebanon
  • 13.5 Neoconservatism
• 14 In popular culture
• 15 Electoral history
• 16 Books and articles
  • 16.1 Books
  • 16.2 Major speeches
  • 16.3 Selected articles
  • 16.4 Interviews
• 17 See also
• 18 References
• 19 External links
  • 19.1 Buchanan-affiliated
  • 19.2 News and analysis
    • 19.2.1 Also
  • 19.3 Campaign materials
  • 19.4 Supporting views
  • 19.5 Opposing views
  • 19.6 Miscellaneous

NIST WTC 7 Report: Shameful, Embarrassing And Completely Flawed

NIST Claims “New Phenomenon” Occurred For First Time Ever In Collapse Of WTC 7

Yet fails to address why ground zero workers and media outlets had prior knowledge of an “extraordinary event” never before observed an hour in advance, plus myriad of other ignored issues

In its final report on the collapse of WTC 7 that news outlets are reporting “puts 9/11 conspiracy theories to bed,” NIST claims that the never before observed “new phenomenon” of “thermal expansion” was to blame for the destruction of the building, a completely ludicrous conclusion in a report that simply ignores eyewitness testimony and hard evidence that points to the deliberate demolition of the structure.

NIST completely fails to address prior knowledge of the building’s collapse, including why news outlets like the BBC and CNN reported that the building had collapsed an hour before it actually fell, as well as firefighters on the scene who are heard on video saying, “Keep your eye on that building, it’ll be coming down soon.”

If the collapse of WTC 7 came as a result of a “new phenomenon” and an “extraordinary event” that had never happened before in the history of building collapses, then why did news stations and ground zero workers know it was about to happen a hour or more in advance?

This on its own completely destroys the very foundation of NIST’s assertion that a “new phenomenon” was responsible for the collapse.

Which is the more likely scenario - that ground zero officials and media outlets got word that the building was going to be “pulled” - or that they employed clairvoyant powers of deduction that enabled them to foresee an event that had never happened before in history to a building that was structurally reinforced and had suffered limited fires?

NIST claims that the collapse of Building 7 is “The first known instance of fire causing the total collapse of a tall building”.

We are actually being asked to believe the impossible - that WTC 7 was the only building in history to have defied all precedent and suffered a complete and almost instantaneous collapse from fire damage alone, despite this being an impossibility if one accepts the basic laws of physics as accurate.

The issue of molten metal, which was discovered under both the twin towers and WTC 7, suggesting an extremely hot burning agent was used in the demolition process, is completely ignored in NIST’s report, despite it being acknowledged in Appendix C of FEMA’s World Trade Center Building Performance Study, which stated:

Evidence of a severe high temperature corrosion attack on the steel, including oxidation and sulfidation with subsequent intergranular melting, was readily visible in the near-surface microstructure. A liquid eutectic mixture containing primarily iron, oxygen, and sulfur formed during this hot corrosion attack on the steel… The severe corrosion and subsequent erosion of Samples 1 and 2 are a very unusual event. No clear explanation for the source of the sulfur has been identified.

Speaking during a press conference that was called to counter NIST, Richard Gage, founder of Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth and a member of the American Institute of Architects, dismissed the report.

“Tons of [molten metal] was found 21 days after the attack,” said Gage in an interview with a Vancouver, Canada television station. “Steel doesn’t begin to melt until 2,700 degrees, which is much hotter than what these fires could have caused.”

“There are holes in this story that you can drive a truck through,” he added, citing NIST’s claim that no evidence suggested loud explosive booms accompanied the collapse of the building by reminding that Thermite, a steel cutting agent, makes no explosive sound.

Even aside from this argument, there were numerous close proximity eyewitnesses who reported loud explosions, including NYPD officer Craig Bartmer and ground zero first responder Kevin McPadden (who also experienced the countdown before the building fell), but this fact was again simply ignored by NIST.

“FEMA found it,” said Gage. “Dr. Steven Jones found it, in the dust that landed in the entire area of lower Manhattan. And he finds it in the chunks of previously molten metal [from the towers].”

The core of NIST’s explanation, that an “extraordinary event” called “thermal expansion” was to blame for the sudden total collapse of the building is of course on the face of it a fraud when one considers the innumerable number of buildings that have suffered roaring fires across the majority of their floors and remained standing, whereas WTC 7 suffered limited fire damage across a handful of floors.

NIST also claims that the building only fell at 40% free fall speed, as if this isn’t suspicious in itself. Remember that this 47-story behemoth took just 7 seconds to completely collapse within its own footprint falling through the path of most resistance.

As the George Washington blog points out, “NIST said that WTC 7 fell at 40% slower than free fall speed. But it collapsed a lot faster than it would have if the structural supports were not all blown away at the same instant. 40% slower isn’t very impressive — that’s like arguing that a rock falling through concrete 40% slower than a rock falling through the air is perfectly normal.”

The George Washington blog has compiled a list of experts in structural engineering and demolition who have all questioned NIST’s conclusion. None of these individuals were approached by NIST to partake in their final report.

• The former head of the Fire Science Division of the government agency which claims that the World Trade Centers collapsed due to fire (the National Institute of Standards and Technology), who is one of the world’s leading fire science researchers and safety engineers, a Ph.D. in mechanical engineering (Dr. James Quintiere), called for an independent review of the World Trade Center Twin Tower collapse investigation. “I wish that there would be a peer review of this,” he said, referring to the NIST investigation. “I think all the records that NIST has assembled should be archived. I would really like to see someone else take a look at what they’ve done; both structurally and from a fire point of view. … I think the official conclusion that NIST arrived at is questionable.

• Kamal S. Obeid, structural engineer, with a masters degree in Engineering from UC Berkeley, of Fremont, California, says:

“Photos of the steel, evidence about how the buildings collapsed, the unexplainable collapse of WTC 7, evidence of thermite in the debris as well as several other red flags, are quite troubling indications of well planned and controlled demolition”

• Ronald H. Brookman, structural engineer, with a masters degree in Engineering from UC Davis, of Novato California, writes:

“Why would all 47 stories of WTC 7 fall straight down to the ground in about seven seconds… ? It was not struck by any aircraft or engulfed in any fire. An independent investigation is justified for all three collapses including the surviving steel samples and the composition of the dust.”

• Graham John Inman, structural engineer, of London, England, points out:

“WTC 7 Building could not have collapsed as a result of internal fire and external debris. NO plane hit this building. This is the only case of a steel frame building collapsing through fire in the world. The fire on this building was small & localized therefore what is the cause?”

• A Dutch demolition expert (Danny Jowenko) stated that WTC 7 was imploded

• A prominent physicist with 33 years of service for the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, DC (Dr. David L. Griscom) said that the official theory for why the Twin Towers and world trade center building 7 collapsed “does not match the available facts” and supports the theory that the buildings were brought down by controlled demolition

To claim that the collapse of WTC 7 is “no longer a mystery,” as chief NIST investigator Dr. Shyam Sunder stated yesterday smacks of a desperate attempt to proclaim the authority of the official story by mere words alone, when in reality NIST’s laughable “new phenomenon” claim, the latest in a long line of changing explanations for the obvious demolition of Building 7, only heaps more embarrassment on NIST and makes the official 9/11 story look more untrustworthy than ever before.

Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet
Friday, August 22, 2008

www.prisonplanet.com/nist-wtc-7-report-shameful-e mbarrassing-and-completely-flawed.html

_______________________

georgewashington2.blogspot.com/2008/08/debunking- nists-conclusions-about-wtc-7.html

Thursday, August 21, 2008

Debunking NIST's Conclusions about WTC 7: Easy as Shooting Fish in a Barrel

Posted by George Washington at 4:24 PM

(embryonic is an understatement)
 

Video Link: This video is from MSNBC's Countdown, broadcast August 18, 2008.

  www.youtube.com/watch

MSNBC: Bush creating 'embryonic police state'

rawstory.com/news/2008/MSNBC_Bush_creating_embryo nic_police_state_0819.html

Nick Langewis and David Edwards
Published: Tuesday August 19, 2008

"Now that the Democrats were nice enough to fold up on FISA," MSNBC's Keith Olbermann said, "the issue is all contained now. Right? Not exactly."

The Justice Department has proposed changes to police intelligence-gathering rules that would ease the transfer of information about citizens to federal intelligence agencies, who would then keep the information for at least 10 years. The changes, the first since 1993, were introduced for public comment on July 31.

Under the proposed changes, law enforcement agencies would be allowed to target groups and individuals on the basis of suspicion of participation in terrorist acts or providing material support to terrorists. Former FBI agent and American Civil Liberties Union policy counsel Michael German, however, told the Washington Post that the proposed changes could lead to abuse of constitutional rights by law enforcement agencies, citing cases where police have eavesdropped on political dissenters and infiltrated their ranks.

"It turns police officers into spies on behalf of the federal government," German said. "If police officers no longer see themselves as engaged in protecting their communities from criminals and instead as domestic intelligence agents working on behalf of the CIA, they will be encouraged to collect more information."

The real intent of the changes, Olbermann opined, is to implement them before President Bush leaves office "so the next president can't do a damn thing about unraveling this disaster, which is, appropriately enough, an embryonic police state."

On Monday, the Senate Judiciary Committee called on Attorney General Michael Mukasey to delay the implementation of the new guidelines, which would take effect October 1, until FBI Director Robert Mueller has a chance to testify to the Committee on September 17. "Efforts to harmonize the rules governing criminal and national security matters also raise potential civil liberties concerns," said Committee chairman Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and Ranking Member Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA) in a letter to Mukasey, "given the broader latitude currently given to investigators to consider race and ethnicity in national security matters."

Potential Obama VP Is Pro-War, Pro-Patriot Act Neo-Con

The man who many are tipping to become Barack Obama’s running mate is a pro-war, pro-patriot act, Bilderberg member who was an honorary co-chair of the neocon Committee for the Liberation of Iraq, a group that aggressively propagandized for the invasion of Iraq in 2003. Ladies and gentlemen - meet Senator Evan Bayh.

“Top Democratic Party officials are expecting Sen. Barack Obama to select Indiana Sen. Evan Bayh as his running mate as early as midweek,” according to US News and World Report.

So exactly where do the sympathies of the Indiana Senator lie and do they jive with Barack Obama’s proclaimed platitude to be offering “change” in the upcoming presidential election?

According to Wikipedia, “On October 2, 2002, Bayh joined President George W. Bush and Congressional leaders in a Rose Garden ceremony announcing their agreement on the joint resolution authorizing the Iraq War, and was thanked by Bush and Senator John McCain for co-sponsoring the resolution.”

Not only that, but Bayh served as an honorary co-chair of the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq along with John McCain, Obama’s Republican adversary.

As Talking Points Memo notes, “The Committee is a neo-con group that was formed to propagandize the country into war. It boasted such illustrious neocon members as Bill Kristol, former CIA director James Woolsey, and even McCain senior foreign policy adviser and Chalabi-bamboozler Randy Scheunemann.”

In a February 2006 interview with the Washington Post, Bayh “refused, as some of his fellow Senators already had, to renounce his support for the war”.

Bayh also voted for the re-authorization of the USA Patriot Act in 2006.

The Senator is also a keen supporter of the pro-Israel lobby group AIPAC, having previously described his “lifelong affection for the state of Israel” at an AIPAC luncheon.

Bayh has warned that Iran is seeking a nuclear weapon, despite the National Intelligence Estimate having refuted this claim, and the Senator has also introduced sanctions against Iran, repeatedly denouncing the country with heated rhetoric on national television.

Bayh is also a Bilderberg Group kingpin, having not only attended its meeting but also giving a keynote speech at their 1999 confab in Sintra, Portugal.

Meet the new boss, same as the old boss. Bayh is nothing more than another pro-war, pro destruction of the constitution, elitist neocon scumbag. What makes him more dangerous is that he is - just like Obama himself - a wolf in sheep’s clothing, camouflaging himself amidst the mindless rhetoric of “change” while in reality representing nothing more than the status quo.

www.prisonplanet.com/potential-obama-vp-is-pro-wa r-pro-patriot-act-neo-con.html

I say arm all staff members & students nation wide. When the citizens are armed, the crime rate dramatically reduces. 

Check out the video to the left or click : www.youtube.com/watch

_______________________

Tuesday, Aug 19, 2008

School Website: harroldisd.net/

 _________________________________

The only true pro gun organization left in the United States

www.gunowners.org/

_________________________________

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._Neil_Schulman

Gary Kleck, Ph.D. is a professor in the School of Criminology and Criminal Justice at Florida State University in Tallahassee and author of "Point Blank: Guns and Violence in America" (Aldine de Gruyter, 1991), a book widely cited in the national gun-control debate. In an exclusive interview, Dr. Kleck revealed some preliminary results of the National Self- Defense Survey which he and his colleague Dr. Marc Gertz conducted in Spring, 1993. Though he stresses that the results of the survey are preliminary and subject to future revision, Kleck is satisfied that the survey's results confirm his analysis of previous surveys which show that American civilians commonly use their privately-owned firearms to defend themselves against criminal attacks, and that such defensive uses significantly outnumber the criminal uses of firearms in America. The new survey, conducted by random telephone sampling of 4,978 households in all the states except Alaska and Hawaii, yield results indicating that American civilians use their firearms as often as 2.5 million times every year defending against a confrontation with a criminal, and that handguns alone account for up to 1.9 million defenses per year. Previous surveys, in Kleck's analysis, had underrepresented the extent of private firearms defenses because the questions asked failed to account for the possibility that a particular respondent might have had to use his or her firearm more than once.

 

Dr. Kleck will first present his survey results at an upcoming meeting of the American Society of Criminology, but he agreed to discuss his preliminary analysis, even though it is uncustomary to do so in advance of complete peer review, because of the great extent which his earlier work is being quoted in public debates on firearms public policy.

 

The interview was conducted September 14-17, 1993 by J. Neil Schulman, a novelist, screenwriter, and journalist who has written extensively on firearms public policy for several years.

 

Readers may be interested to know that Kleck is a member of the ACLU, Amnesty International USA, and Common Cause, among other politically liberal organizations. He is also a lifelong registered Democrat. He is not and has never been a member of or contributor to the NRA, Handgun Control Inc., or any other advocacy group on either side of the gun-control issue, nor has he received funding for research from any such organization.

 

------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------

 

SCHULMAN: Dr. Kleck, can you tell me generally what was discovered in your recent survey that wasn't previously known?

 

KLECK: Well, the survey mostly generated results pretty consistent with those of a dozen previous surveys which generally indicates that defensive use of guns is pretty common and probably more common than criminal uses of guns. This survey went beyond previous ones in that it provided detail about how often people who had used a gun had done so. We asked people was the gun used defensively in the past five years and if so how many times did that happen and we asked details about what exactly happened. We nailed down that each use being reported was a bona fide defensive use against a human being in connection with a crime where there was an actual confrontation between victim and offender. Previous surveys were a little hazy on the details of exactly what was being reported as a defensive gun use. It wasn't, for example, clear that the respondents weren't reporting investigating a suspicious noise in their back yard with a gun where there was, in fact, nobody there. Our results ended up indicating, depending on which figures you prefer to use, anywhere from 800,000 on up to 2.4, 2.5 million defensive uses of guns against human beings -- not against animals -- by civilians each year.

 

SCHULMAN: Okay. Let's see if we can pin down some of these figures. I understand you asked questions having to do with just the previous one year. Is that correct?

 

KLECK: That's correct. We asked both for recollections about the preceding five years and for just what happened in the previous one year, the idea being that people would be able to remember more completely what had happened just in the past year.

 

SCHULMAN: And your figures reflect this?

 

KLECK: Yes. The estimates are considerably higher if they're based on people's presumably more-complete recollection of just what happened in the previous year.

 

SCHULMAN: Okay. So you've given us the definition of what a "defense" is. It has to be an actual confrontation against a human being attempting a crime? Is that correct?

 

KLECK: Correct.

 

SCHULMAN: And it excludes all police, security guards, and military personnel?

 

KLECK: That's correct.

 

SCHULMAN: Okay. Let's ask the "one year" question since you say that's based on better recollections. In the last year how many people who responded to the questionnaire said that they had used a firearm to defend themselves against an actual confrontation from a human being attempting a crime?

 

KLECK: Well, as a percentage it's 1.33 percent of the respondents. When you extrapolate that to the general population, it works out to be 2.4 million defensive uses of guns of some kind -- not just handguns but any kind of a gun -- within that previous year, which would have been roughly from Spring of 1992 through Spring of 1993.

 

SCHULMAN: And if you focus solely on handguns?

 

KLECK: It's about 1.9 million, based on personal, individual recollections.

 

SCHULMAN: And what percentage of the respondents is that? Just handguns?

 

KLECK: That would be 1.03 percent.

 

SCHULMAN: How many respondents did you have total?

 

KLECK: We had a total of 4,978 completed interviews, that is, where we had a response on the key question of whether or not there had been a defensive gun use.

 

SCHULMAN: So roughly 50 people out of 5000 responded that in the last year they had had to use their firearms in an actual confrontation against a human being attempting a crime?

 

KLECK: Handguns, yes.

 

SCHULMAN: Had used a handgun. And slightly more than that had used any gun.

 

KLECK: Right.

 

SCHULMAN: So that would be maybe 55, 56 people?

 

KLECK: Something like that, yeah.

 

SCHULMAN: Okay. I can just hear critics saying that 50 or 55 people responding that they used their gun and you're projecting it out to figures of around 2 million, 2-1/2 million gun defenses. Why is that statistically valid?

 

KLECK: Well, that's one reason why we also had a five-year recollection period. We get a much larger raw number of people saying, "Yes, I had a defensive use." It doesn't work out to be as many per year because people are presumably not remembering as completely, but the raw numbers of people who remember some kind of defensive use over the previous five years, that worked out to be on the order of 200 sample cases. So it's really a small raw number only if you limit your attention to those who are reporting an incident just in the previous year. Statistically, it's strictly the raw numbers that are relevant to the issue.

 

SCHULMAN: So if between 1 percent to 1-1/3 percent of your respondents are saying that they defended themselves with a gun, how does this compare, for example, to the number of people who would respond that they had suffered from a crime during that period?

 

KLECK: I really couldn't say. We didn't ask that and I don't think there are really any comparable figures. You could look at the National Crime Surveys for relatively recent years and I guess you could take the share of the population that had been the victims of some kind of violent crime because most of these apparently are responses to violent crimes. Ummm, let's see. The latest year for which I have any data, 1991, would be about 9 percent of the population had suffered a personal crime -- that's a crime with personal contact. And so, to say that 1 percent of the population had defended themselves with a handgun is obviously still well within what you would expect based on the share of the population that had suffered a personal crime of some kind. Plus a number of these defensive uses were against burglars, which isn't considered a personal crime according to the National Crime Survey. But you can add in maybe another 5 percent who'd been a victim of a household burglary.

 

SCHULMAN: Let's break down some of these gun defenses if we can. How many are against armed robbers? How many are against burglars? How many are against people committing a rape or an assault?

 

KLECK: About 8 percent of the defensive uses involved a sexual crime such as an attempted sexual assault. About 29 percent involved some sort of assault other than sexual assault. Thirty-three percent involved a burglary or some other theft at home. Twenty-two percent involved robbery. Sixteen percent involved trespassing. Note that some incidents could involve more than one crime.

 

SCHULMAN: Do you have a breakdown of how many occurred on somebody's property and how many occurred, let's say, off somebody's property where somebody would have had to have been carrying a gun with them on their person or in their car?

 

KLECK: Yes. We asked where the incident took place. Seventy-two percent took place in or near the home, where the gun wouldn't have to be "carried" in a legal sense. And then some of the remainder, maybe another 4 percent, occurred in a friend's home where that might not necessarily involve carrying. Also, some of these incidents may have occurred in a vehicle in a parking lot and that's another 4 percent or so. So some of those incidents may have involved a less-regulated kind of carrying. In many states, for example, it doesn't require a license to carry a gun in your vehicle so I'd say that the share that involved carrying in a legal sense is probably less than a quarter of the incidents. I won't commit myself to anything more than that because we don't have the specifics of whether or not some of these away-from-home incidents occurred while a person was in a car.

 

SCHULMAN: All right. Well, does that mean that approximately a half million times a year somebody carrying a gun away from home uses it to defend himself or herself?

 

KLECK: That's what it would imply, yes.

 

SCHULMAN: All right. As many as one-half million times every year somebody carrying a gun away from home defends himself or herself.

 

KLECK: Yes, about that. It could be as high as that. I have many different estimates and some of the estimates are deliberately more conservative in that they exclude from our sample any cases where it was not absolutely clear that there was a genuine defensive gun use being reported.

 

SCHULMAN: Were any of these gun uses done by anyone under the age of 21 or under the age of 18?

 

KLECK: Well we don't have any coverage of persons under the age of 18. Like most national surveys we cover only adults age 18 and up.

 

SCHULMAN: Did you have any between the ages of 18 and 21?

 

KLECK: I haven't analyzed the cross tabulation of age with defensive gun use so I couldn't say at this point.

 

SCHULMAN: Okay. Was this survey representative just of Florida or is it representative of the entire United States?

 

KLECK: It's representative of the lower 48 states.

 

SCHULMAN: And that means that there was calling throughout all the different states?

 

KLECK: Yes, except Alaska and Hawaii, and that's also standard practice for national surveys; because of the expense they usually aren't contacted.

 

SCHULMAN: How do these surveys make their choices, for example, between high-crime urban areas and less-crime rural areas?

 

KLECK: Well, there isn't a choice made in that sense. It's a telephone survey and the telephone numbers are randomly chosen by computer so that it works out that every residential telephone number in the lower 48 states had an equal chance of being picked, except that we deliberately oversampled from the South and the West and then adjusted after the fact for that overrepresentation. It results in no biasing. The results are representative of the entire United States, but it yields a larger number of sample cases of defensive gun uses. They are, however, weighted back down so that they properly represent the correct percent of the population that's had a defensive gun use.

 

SCHULMAN: Why is it that the results of your survey are so counter-intuitive compared to police experience?

 

KLECK: For starters, there are substantial reasons for people not to report defensive gun uses to the police or, for that matter, even to interviewers working for researchers like me -- the reason simply being that a lot of the times people either don't know whether their defensive act was legal or even if they think that was legal, they're not sure that possessing a gun at that particular place and time was legal. They may have a gun that's supposed to be registered and it's not or maybe it's totally legally owned but they're not supposed to be walking around on the streets with it.

 

SCHULMAN: Did your survey ask the question of whether people carrying guns had licenses to do so?

 

KLECK: No, we did not. We thought that would be way too sensitive a question to ask people.

 

SCHULMAN: Okay. Let's talk about how the guns were actually used in order to accomplish the defense. How many people, for example, had to merely show the gun, as opposed to how many had to fire a warning shot, as to how many actually had to attempt to shoot or shoot their attacker?

 

KLECK: We got all of the details about everything that people could have done with a gun from as mild an action as merely verbally referring to the gun on up to actually shooting somebody.

 

SCHULMAN: Could you give me the percentages?

 

KLECK: Yes. You have to keep in mind that it's quite possible for people to have done more than one of these things since they could obviously both verbally refer to the gun and point it at somebody or even shoot it.

 

SCHULMAN: Okay.

 

KLECK: Fifty-four percent of the defensive gun uses involved somebody verbally referring to the gun. Forty-seven percent involved the gun being pointed at the criminal. Twenty-two percent involved the gun being fired. Fourteen percent involved the gun being fired at somebody, meaning it wasn't just a warning shot; the defender was trying to shoot the criminal. Whether they succeeded or not is another matter but they were trying to shoot a criminal. And then in 8 percent they actually did wound or kill the offender.

 

SCHULMAN: In 8 percent, wounded or killed. You don't have it broken down beyond that?

 

KLECK: Wound versus kill? No. Again that was thought to be too sensitive a question. Although we did have, I think, two people who freely offered the information that they had, indeed, killed someone. Keep in mind that the 8 percent figure is based on so few cases that you have to interpret it with great caution.

 

SCHULMAN: Did anybody respond to a question asking whether they had used the gun and it was found afterward to be unjustified?

 

KLECK: We did not ask them that question although we did ask them what crime they thought was being committed. So in each case the only incidents we were accepting as bona fide defensive gun uses were ones where the defender believed that, indeed, a crime had been committed against them.

 

SCHULMAN: Did you ask any follow-up questions about how many people had been arrested or captured as a result of their actions?

 

KLECK: No.

 

SCHULMAN: Did you ask any questions about aid in law enforcement, such as somebody helps a police officer who's not themselves an officer?

 

KLECK: No. I imagine that would be far too rare an incident to get any meaningful information out of it. Highly unlikely that any significant share of these involved assisting law enforcement.

 

SCHULMAN: The question which this all comes down to is that we already have some idea, for example from surveys on CCW license holders, how rare it is for a CCW holder to misuse their gun in a way to injure somebody improperly. But does this give us any idea of what the percentages are of people who carry a gun having to use it in order to defend himself or herself? In other words, comparing the percentage of defending yourself to the percentage of being attacked, does this tell us anything?

 

KLECK: We asked them whether they carried guns at any time but we didn't directly ask them if they were carrying guns, in the legal sense, at the time they had used their gun defensively. So we can probably say what fraction of gun carriers in our sample had used a gun defensively but we can't say whether they did it while carrying. They may, for example, have been people who at least occasionally carried a gun for protection but they used a gun defensively in their own home.

 

SCHULMAN: So what percentage of gun carriers used it defensively?

 

KLECK: I haven't calculated it yet so I couldn't say.

 

SCHULMAN: So if we assume, let's say, that every year approximately 9 percent of people are going to be attacked, and approximately every year that 1 percent of respondents used their guns to defend against an attack, is it fair to say that around one out of nine people attacked used their guns to defend themselves?

 

KLECK: That "risk of being attacked" shouldn't be phrased that way. It's the risk of being the victim of a personal crime. In other words, it involved interpersonal contact. That could be something like a nonviolent crime like purse snatching or pickpocketing as well. The fact that personal contact is involved means there's an opportunity to defend against it using a gun; it doesn't necessarily mean there was an attack on the victim.

 

SCHULMAN: Did you get any data on how the attackers were armed during these incidents?

 

KLECK: Yes. We also asked whether the offender was armed. The offender was armed in 47.2 percent of the cases and they had a handgun in about 13.6 percent of all the cases and some other kind of gun in 4.5 percent of all the cases.

 

SCHULMAN: So in other words, in about a sixth of the cases, the person attacking was armed with a firearm.

 

KLECK: That's correct.

 

SCHULMAN: Okay. And the remainder?

 

KLECK: Armed with a knife: 18.1 percent, 2 percent with some other sharp object, 10.1 percent with a blunt object, and 6 percent with some other weapon. Keep in mind when adding this up that offenders could have had more than one weapon.

 

SCHULMAN: So in approximately five sixths of the cases somebody carrying a gun for defensive reasons would find themselves defending themselves either against an unarmed attacker or an attacker with a lesser weapon?

 

KLECK: Right. About five-sixths of the time.

 

SCHULMAN: And about one-sixth of the time they would find themselves up against somebody who's armed with a firearm.

 

KLECK: Well, certainly in this sample of incidents that was the case.

 

SCHULMAN: Which you believe is representative.

 

KLECK: It's representative of what's happened in the last five years. Whether or not it would be true in the future we couldn't say for sure.

 

SCHULMAN: Are there any other results coming out of this which are surprising to you?

 

KLECK: About the only thing which was surprising is how often people had actually wounded someone in the incident. Previous surveys didn't have very many sample cases so you couldn't get into the details much but some evidence had suggested that a relatively small share of incidents involved the gun inflicting wounds so it was surprising to me that quite so many defenders had used a gun that way.

 

SCHULMAN: Dr. Kleck, is there anything else you'd like to say at this time about the results of your survey and your continuing analysis of them?

 

KLECK: Nope.

 

SCHULMAN: Then thank you very much.

 

KLECK: You're welcome.

 

Reply to -

 

J. Neil Schulman

Mail: P.O. Box 94, Long Beach, CA

90801-0094 JNS

BBS: 1-310-839-7653,,,,25

softserv@genie.geis.com

The Matrix & Other 9/11 Hollywood Symbolism

JonesReport.com | August 18, 2008

Insiders love bragging to one another about being on the inside-- perhaps that's one explanation for an abundance of illuminati symbolism in mainstream media and corporate logos.

Among the interesting references to 9/11 that have been uncovered in media released before 9/11 is a passport for 'Neo' in blockbuster film The Matrix, released in 1999.

The passport-- in Neo's file-- shows an expiration date of '11 SEP 01,' seemingly now an eerie coincidence found in the smallest of details.

CLICK HERE TO SEE FULL SIZED FRAME

Further, the 10-year passport shows an issue date of '12 SEP 91'-- only one day after George H.W. Bush's haunting September 11, 1991 speech before Congress where he called for, in no uncertain terms, a New World Order (and before that on Sept. 11, 1990) . Indeed, September 11 proves to be an important occultic date/number to the elites.

Coincidence or not, the Wachowski brothers, the film's directors, have proven to be obviously knowledgeable about a number of esoteric meanings-- not only do both The Matrix trilogy and V for Vendetta contain plotlines laden with occult symbolism, but its imagery is also textured throughout these films.

Photo above: The Simpsons, "The City of New York vs. Homer Simpson" Orig. airdate September 21, 1997 [wiki]

Such pre-9/11 coincidences are prevalent elsewhere in the media as well. For instance, a 1997 episode of the Simpsons shows Lisa holding an ad for a $9 bus trip to New York with the towers interestingly juxtaposed next to the 9, portraying the image of 9/11.

The pilot episode for 'The Lone Gunmen' (an X-Files spin off) featured an extremely eerie plot where a government faction posing as terrorists hijack a 727 by remote control and attempt to fly it into the World Trade Center-- the episode aired on March 4, 2001-- some 6 months before the 9/11 attacks.

 ________________________________________

Video Link: www.youtube.com/watch

Above: From the pilot for 'The Lone Gunmen' - Orig. airdate March 4, 2001

The series' star, Dean Haglund, has previously appeared on the Alex Jones Show to discuss the odd coincidence.

Watch an excerpt from the video interview: www.youtube.com/watch

"Part of the plot, as it said in the script was that this event would be used to start an international war on terror." Haglund commented.

Interestingly, Haglund also revealed that representatives of the FBI and NASA would frequently approach X-Files series creator Chris Carter with plots for stories and noted also that CIA and other government officials frequented Hollywood parties to plant script ideas.

It is well-known that the Pentagon has a heavy influence in most big budget military films-- trading access to bases, planes and other equipment for heavily influence and control of the message in scripts-- and it is clear that such government forces meddle in other areas of media as well.

Obscure 9/11 references before the fact: File it under 'things that make you go hmmm' because it certainly wasn't bin Laden who put those references there.

 ___________________________________

www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/fema/ertss.pdf

www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSSP21695020080 819

Large U.S. bank collapse seen ahead

Tue Aug 19, 2008 1:07am EDT

By Jan Dahinten

SINGAPORE (Reuters) - The worst of the global financial crisis is yet to come and a large U.S. bank will fail in the next few months as the world's biggest economy hits further troubles, former IMF chief economist Kenneth Rogoff said on Tuesday.

"The U.S. is not out of the woods. I think the financial crisis is at the halfway point, perhaps. I would even go further to say 'the worst is to come'," he told a financial conference.

"We're not just going to see mid-sized banks go under in the next few months, we're going to see a whopper, we're going to see a big one, one of the big investment banks or big banks," said Rogoff, who is an economics professor at Harvard University and was the International Monetary Fund's chief economist from 2001 to 2004.

"We have to see more consolidation in the financial sector before this is over," he said, when asked for early signs of an end to the crisis.

"Probably Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac -- despite what U.S. Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson said -- these giant mortgage guarantee agencies are not going to exist in their present form in a few years."

Rogoff's comments come as investors dumped shares of the largest U.S. home funding companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac on Monday after a newspaper report said government officials may have no choice but to effectively nationalize the U.S. housing finance titans.

A government move to recapitalize the two companies by injecting funds could wipe out existing common stock holders, the weekend Barron's story said. Preferred shareholders and even holders of the two government-sponsored entities' $19 billion of subordinated debt would also suffer losses.

Rogoff said multi-billion dollar investments by sovereign wealth funds from Asia and the Middle East in western financial firms may not necessarily result in large profits because they had not taken into account the broader market conditions that the industry faces.

"There was this view early on in the crisis that sovereign wealth funds could save everybody. Investment banks did something stupid, they lost money in the sub-prime, they're great buys, sovereign wealth funds come in and make a lot of money by buying them.

"That view neglects the point that the financial system has become very bloated in size and needed to shrink," Rogoff told the conference in Singapore, whose wealth funds GIC and Temasek have invested billions in Merrill Lynch and Citigroup

In response to the sharp U.S. housing retrenchment and turmoil in credit markets, the U.S. Federal Reserve has reduced interest rates by a cumulative 3.25 percentage points to 2 percent since mid-September.

Rogoff said the U.S. Federal Reserve was wrong to cut interest rates as "dramatically" as it did.

"Cutting interest rates is going to lead to a lot of inflation in the next few years in the United States."

(Editing by Neil Chatterjee)

Part 1: www.youtube.com/watch

Part 2: www.youtube.com/watch

I don't agree with Ventura's views about the border issue.... Illegal aliens are sinking the life boat. He is right about the U.S. being hated around the planet.

Jesse Ventura is spot on about 9/11.

Note: Raymond McGovern (born 1939) is a retired CIA officer turned political activist. McGovern was a Federal employee under seven U.S. presidents over 27 years, presenting the morning intelligence briefings at the White House for many of them.

_________________

consortiumnews.com

A Letter to Colin Powell

By Ray McGovern
August 15, 2008

Dear Colin,

You have said you regret the “blot” on your record caused by your parroting spurious intelligence at the U.N. to justify war on Iraq. On the chance you may not have noticed, I write to point out that you now have a unique opportunity to do some rehab on your reputation.

If you were blindsided, well, here’s an opportunity to try to wipe off some of the blot. There is no need for you to end up like Lady Macbeth, wandering around aimlessly muttering, Out damn spot…or blot.

It has always strained credulity, at least as far as I was concerned, to accept the notion that naiveté prevented you from seeing through the game Vice President Dick Cheney and then-CIA Director George Tenet were playing on Iraq.

And I was particularly suspicious when you chose to ignore the strong dissents of your own State Department intelligence analysts who, as you know, turned out to be far more on target than counterparts in more servile agencies.

It was equally difficult for me to believe that you thought that, by insisting that shameless George Tenet sit behind you on camera, you could ensure a modicum of truth in your speech before the U.N. Security Council. You were far savvier than that.

That is certainly the impression I got from our every-other-morning conversations in the mid-80s, before I went in to brief the President’s Daily Brief to your boss, then-Defense Secretary Casper Weinberger, one-on-one.

I saw the street smarts you displayed then. The savvy was familiar to me. I concluded that it came, in part, from the two decades you and I spent growing up in the same neighborhood at the same time in the Bronx.

On those Bronx streets, rough as they were, there was also a strong sense of what was honorable —honorable even among thieves and liars, you might say. And we had words, which I will not repeat here, for sycophants, pimps, and cowards.

Your U.N. speech of Feb. 5, 2003 left me speechless, so to speak — largely because of the measure of respect I had had for you before then.

Outrage is too tame a word for what quickly became my reaction and that of my colleagues in Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS), as we watched you perform before the Security Council less than six weeks before the unnecessary, illegal attack on Iraq.

The purpose — as well as the speciousness — of your address were all too transparent and, in a same-day commentary, we VIPS warned President George W. Bush that, if he attacked Iraq, “the unintended consequences are likely to be catastrophic.”

That’s history. Or, as investigative reporter Ron Suskind would say, “It’s all on the record.”

You have not yet summoned the courage to admit it, but I think I know you well enough to believe you have a Lady Macbeth-type conscience problem that goes far beyond the spot on your record.

With 4,141 American soldiers — not to mention hundreds of thousands of Iraqi citizens — dead, and over 30,000 GIs badly wounded, how could you not?

What Did You Know…and When?

Here is what could be good news for you, Colin.

Information that has come to light over the past two years or so could wipe some of the blot fouling your record. It all depends, I guess, on how truthful you are prepared to be now.

Much of the new data comes from former CIA officials who, ironically, have sought to assuage their own consciences by doing talk therapy with authors like Sidney Blumenthal and Ron Suskind.

At first blush, these revelations seem so outlandish that they themselves strain credulity. But they stand up to close scrutiny far better than what you presented in your U.N. speech, for example.

If you now depend on the fawning corporate media (FCM) for your information, you will have missed this very significant, two-pronged story.

In brief, with the help of Allied intelligence services, the CIA recruited your Iraqi counterpart, Saddam Hussein’s foreign minister, Naji Sabri, and Tahir Jalil Habbush, the chief of Iraqi intelligence. They were cajoled into remaining in place while giving us critical intelligence well before the war — actually, well before your speech laying the groundwork for war.

In other words, at a time when Saddam Hussein believed that Sabri and Habbush were working for him, we had “turned” them. They were working for us, and much of the information they provided had been evaluated and verified.

Most important, each independently affirmed that there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, information that should have prevented you from making a fool of yourself before the U.N. Security Council.

The Iraqi Foreign Minister

The FCM gave almost no coverage (surprise, surprise!) to the reporting from Naji Sabri, which continues to be pretty much lost in the woodwork.

In case you missed it, we now know from former CIA officials that his information on the absence of WMD was concealed from Congress, from our senior military, and from intelligence analysts — including those working on the infamous National Intelligence Estimate of Oct. 1, 2002. 

That NIE, titled “Iraq’s Continuing Programs for WMD,” was the one specifically designed to mislead Congress into authorizing the president to make war on Iraq.

One question is whether it is true that Sabri’s reporting was also concealed from you.

Tyler Drumheller, at the time a division chief in CIA’s clandestine service, was the first to tell the story of Naji Sabri, who is now living a comfortable retirement in Qatar. On CBS’s “60 Minutes” on April 23, 2006, Drumheller disclosed that the CIA had received documentary evidence from Sabri that Iraq had no WMD.

Drumheller added, “We continued to validate him the whole way through.”

Then two other former CIA officers confirmed this account to author Sidney Blumenthal, adding that George Tenet briefed this information to President George W. Bush on Sept. 18, 2002, and that Bush dismissed the information as worthless.

Wait. It gets worse. The two former CIA officers told Blumenthal that someone in the agency rewrote the report from Sabri to indicate that Saddam Hussein was “aggressively and covertly developing” nuclear weapons and already had chemical and biological weapons.

That altered report was shown to the likes of UK Prime Minister Tony Blair, who was “duped,” according to one of the CIA officers.

Worse still, the former CIA officials reported that George Tenet never shared the unadulterated information from the Iraqi foreign minister with you, the Secretary of State and Naji Sabri’s counterpart. Again, whether that is true is a very large outstanding question.

The Chief of Iraqi Intelligence

Again, Colin, I am assuming you take your information from the FCM, so let me brief you, as in the old days, on what else has popped up over the past couple of weeks.

Two other CIA clandestine service officers have told author Ron Suskind that Iraqi intelligence chief Habbush had become one of our secret sources on Iraq, beginning in January 2003.

I hope you are sitting down, Colin, because Habbush also told us Iraq had no WMD. One of the helpful insights he passed along to us was that Saddam Hussein had decided that some ambiguity on the WMD issue would help prevent his main enemy, Iran, from thinking of Iraq as a toothless tiger.

Habbush, part of Saddam’s inner circle, had direct access to this kind of information. But when President Bush was first told of Habbush’s report that there were no WMD in Iraq, Suskind’s sources say the president reacted by saying, “Well, why don’t you tell him to give us something we can use to make our case?”

Apparently, Habbush was unable or unwilling to oblige by changing his story. 

Nevertheless, later in 2003, when it became clear that he had been telling the unwelcome truth, Habbush was helped to resettle in Jordan and given $5 million to keep his mouth shut.

Suskind also reveals that in the fall of 2003, Habbush was asked to earn his keep by participating in a keystone-cops-type forgery aimed at “proving” that Saddam Hussein did, after all, have a direct hand in the tragedy of 9/11.

This crude forgery was not unlike the one that originally gave us the yarn about yellowcake uranium going from Niger to Iraq.

You will hardly be surprised to hear there is evidence, much of it circumstantial, that Vice President Dick Cheney was the intellectual author of both incredibly inept forgery operations.

Sorry to have to bring this up, but there is something else about Habbush that you need to know. He had actually been in charge of overseeing what was left of the Iraqi biological weapons program after the 1991 Gulf War, and reported that it was stopped in 1996.

Sabri vs. Curveball

Before the attack on Iraq, Tenet’s deputy, John McLaughlin, was repeatedly briefed on Sabri’s information, but complained that it was at variance with “our best source” — a reference to the infamous “Curveball,” the con-man whom German intelligence had warned the CIA not to take seriously.

You may recall hearing that on the evening before your U.N. speech, Drumheller warned Tenet not to use the information from Curveball on mobile biological weapons laboratories; Tenet gave Drumheller the brush-off.

The CIA artists’ renderings of those laboratories, to which you called such prominent attention during your speech, were spiffy, but bore no relationship to reality. Tenet and McLaughlin knew this almost as well as Sabri and Habbush did.

“We have firsthand descriptions of biological weapons factories on wheels and rails,” you will recall telling the world. Later, you lamented publicly that you had not been warned about Curveball either.

McLaughlin seemed to confirm that this was so, in an interview with the Washington Post in 2006: “If someone had made those doubts clear to me, I would not have permitted the reporting to be used in Secretary Powell’s speech.”

This is highly disingenuous, even by McLaughlin’s and Tenet’s standards, since they had deliberately chosen to ignore Drumheller’s warning. I know Drumheller; he is a far better bet for truthfulness that the other two.

Outright Lies

Although I am against the death penalty, I can sympathize with the vehement reaction of normally taciturn Carl Ford, head of State Department intelligence at the time. Ford has revealed that both Tenet and McLaughlin went to extraordinary lengths, and even took a personal hand in trying to salvage some credibility for the notorious Curveball.

In an interview for Hubris, a book by Michael Isikoff and David Corn, Carl Ford spared no words, asserting that Tenet’s and McLaughlin’s analysis “was not just wrong, they lied…they should have been shot.”

Though I’ve been around a while, I am not the best judge of character, Colin, and perhaps I am being too credulous in giving you the benefit of the doubt concerning what you knew — or didn’t. It could be, I suppose, that you were fully briefed on Naji Sabri, Habbush, Curveball, and all the rest of it, and have been able to orchestrate plausible denial.

If that is the case, I suppose it would seem safer to you to let sleeping dogs lie.

If, on the other hand, what my former colleagues say about your having been fenced off from this key intelligence is true, your reaction seems a bit … how shall I describe it? … understated.

Perhaps you are too long gone from the Bronx. Back there, back then, letting folks use you and make a fool of you without any response was just not done.

It was the equivalent to running away when someone was messing with your sister. And letting oneself be bullied always set a bad precedent, affirming for the bullies that they can push people around — especially understated ones — and risk nothing.

In sum, the CIA had both the Iraqi foreign minister and the Iraqi intelligence chief “turned” and reporting to us in the months before the war (in Naji Sabri’s case) and the weeks before your U.N. speech (in the case of Tahir Jalil Habbush).

Both were part of Saddam Hussein’s inner circle; both reported that there were no weapons of mass destruction.

But this was not what the president wanted to hear, so Tenet put the kibosh on Habbush and put Sabri on a cutter to Qatar.

So Here’s Your Opportunity

Either you knew about Sabri, Habbush and Curveball, or you did not.  If you knew, I suppose you will keep hunkering down, licking your blot, and hoping that plausible denial will continue to work for you.  

If you were kept in the dark, though, I would think you would want to raise holy hell — if not to hold accountable those of your former superiors and colleagues responsible for the carnage of the past five years, then at least to try to wipe the “blot” off your record.

Granted, it probably strikes you as a highly unwelcome choice — whether to appear complicit or naïve. Here’s an idea. Why not just tell the truth?

If House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers is any guide, Congress seems quite taken with the explosive revelations in Ron Suskind’s book “The Way of the World.”

On Thursday, Conyers joined Suskind on Amy Goodman’s “Democracy Now,” and declared that he is “the third day into the most critical investigation of the entire Bush administration.” (He clearly was referring to the Suskind revelations.)

Conyers emphasized that, even though Congress is in recess, “We’re starting our work, and … I’m calling everyone back. We’ve got a huge amount of work to engage in.”

At the same time, though, Conyers said he is “maybe the most frustrated person attempting to exercise the oversight responsibilities that I have on Judiciary.”

A good deal of his frustration comes from stonewalling by the Bush/Cheney administration, which will surely cite national security or executive privilege to justify withholding any damaging information.

Bush Visits CIA

It was, no doubt, pure coincidence that President Bush made a highly unusual visit to CIA headquarters, also on Thursday, before leaving for Crawford on vacation.

The official line is that he wanted an update on the situation in Georgia and the Russian role there, but Bush did not need to go to Langley for that

Rather, given the record of the past seven years, it is reasonable to suggest that he also wanted to assure malleable Mike Hayden, the CIA director, and his minions that they will be protected if they continue to stiff-arm appropriate congressional committees, denying them the information they need for a successful investigation.

Pardons dangled as hush money? Not so bizarre at all.

Some will recall that George H.W. Bush, just before leaving the White House, pardoned one of your former bosses, Casper Weinberger, who had been indicted and was about to go to trial for lying about his role in the Iran-Contra fiasco.

If past is precedent, sad to say, Conyers is not likely to get to first base, UNLESS he can get knowledgeable witnesses to come forward. 

On Thursday he did not rule out a suggestion that Habbush be asked to come before Congress to testify, but the CIA can easily thwart that kind of thing — or delay it indefinitely.

In any case, your own credibility, though damaged, has got to be greater than Habbush’s.  

Let me suggest that you offer yourself as a witness to help clear the air on these very important issues. This would seem the responsible, patriotic thing to do in the circumstances and could also have the salutary effect of beginning the atonement process for that day of infamy at the Security Council.

If we hear no peep out of you in the coming weeks, we shall not be able to escape concluding one of two things:

(1) That, as was the case with the White House Situation Room sessions on torture, you were a willing participant in suppressing/falsifying key intelligence on Iraq; or

(2) That you lack the courage to expose the scoundrels who betrayed not only you, but also that segment of our country and our world that still puts a premium on truth telling and the law.

Think about it.

With all due respect,

Ray McGovern

Source URL: www.consortiumnews.com/2008/081508a.html

Ray McGovern works with Tell the Word, the publishing arm of the ecumenical Church of the Saviour in inner-city Washington. During his 27-year career in CIA’s analysis ranks, he chaired National Intelligence Estimates and briefed the President’s Daily Brief to the most senior national security officials. He is co-founder of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS).

Ray McGovern Wiki link: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ray_McGovern

Stephen Lautens

calsun.canoe.ca/News/Columnists/Lautens_Stephen/2 008/08/16/6472061-sun.php

Global warming the new religion

2008-08-16 04:33:08 MST

Let me say first of all, I love the environment.

In fact, I spend most of my time in some environment or other.

My family lives the low-packaging, low carbon, tedious recycling lifestyle.

My wife is so committed to recycling that I'm convinced that when I'm gone, my body will be dragged to the curb on Wednesday night.

So I have to say in a quiet voice that I'm sick and tired of hearing about carbon footprints, offset credits, green shift and global warming.

Don't get me wrong -- I think looking after the Earth is a good thing.

I don't like messes, pollution, toxic waste, whale hunts or anything else that makes this planet a worse place.

But even for a bearded hermit living in a cave, a zero footprint is impossible.

Even the simplest life is messy and we need to consume.

And within reason, in the first world we are lucky enough to expect to be comfortable. And humans elsewhere aspire to be comfortable too.

You want to tell me that some of us consume too much? You'll get no argument from me.

And some people make far more of a mess than they have to.

I think sharing the planet and making sure there is lots left over for the next generation is a good thing too.

But I think it's a little much when there isn't a single thing that isn't pointed out as the result of global warming. A hot day in the summer -- global warming. A cold day in the winter -- global warming. Too much rain -- global warming. Not enough rain -- global warming. Didn't finish your school homework -- global warming.

The human effect on global warming with all its variations has become the new religion.

Actually, it's become the new big business of activists, consultants, pundits and others who have grasped it with both hands as a way of being taken seriously.

And woe to the heretics who publicly doubt the science behind it.

People like the 100 respected scientists who pointed out in a letter to the United Nations earlier this year that global warming is not only a natural phenomenon, but there isn't much evidence to support the idea that we puny humans riding on the Earth's back are making much of a difference one way or the other.

They point out that "Recent observations of phenomena such as glacial retreats, sea-level rise and the migration of temperature-sensitive species are not evidence for abnormal climate change, for none of these changes has been shown to lie outside the bounds of known natural variability."

No one wants to hear that average temperatures are in the normal range of the last 10,000 years, and there's been no net increase in the past decade.

Humans have pretty limited vision when it comes to a lot of things, so we assume a lot based on our 70 or 80 years on the planet. In the last several billion years, the Earth has been steaming hot or a big ball of ice more times than we can count. And you can be pretty sure the last ice age didn't end 12,000 years ago because some caveman left their SUV idling.

People like Vaclav Klaus, President of the Czech Republic, has gone so far as to say that proposals to address global warming are not justified by current science and are, in fact, a dangerous threat to freedom and prosperity around the world.

So, be nice to the planet. We all live here. But if you want to base a massive change in human activity on predictions about global warming, just ask yourself how often the weatherman gets it right.

DNC Warehouse “Concentration Camp” Uncovered By Reporters

Cells topped with barbed wire to be used to hold protesters rounded up in mass arrests

www.youtube.com/watch

A CBS news crew has uncovered a huge warehouse holding facility in Denver, consisting of steel cages topped with barbed wire, ready to receive thousands of protesters at this year’s Democratic National Convention.

“This is a building filled with metal holding cells,” described CBS reporter Rick Sallinger. “We showed up at the facility unannounced today, the doors were wide open, and we managed to shoot for several minutes until a Denver sheriff’s captain asked us to leave.”

The warehouse is located on the north-east side of Denver and is owned by the city. It appears that officials wanted to keep it a secret until the convention began. The police captain captured on film warned that if made public, the facility could be compromised “by people who are potentially trying to be disruptive.”

Steve Watson
Infowars.net
Friday, August 15, 2008

_____________________________

UPDATE: 

City defends ’secret jail’ built for DNC

Kyle Clark
9news Colorado
Sunday, Aug 17, 2008

Related: DNC Warehouse “Concentration Camp” Uncovered By Reporters

DENVER - Activist groups say the converted warehouse poses a threat to civil liberties. The city maintains the facility is needed in case of mass arrests during the Democratic National Convention.

The makeshift holding center, dubbed “Gitmo on the Platte” by activists, is located on city-owned property near Steele Street and 38th Avenue. Newly-installed security cameras guard the exterior, chain-link fences and barbed wire form cells inside.

Watch the video News Report here: www.9news.com/news/article.aspx

____________________________

Flashback:

DURING THE 2004 REPUBLICAN NATIONAL CONVENTION IN NYC, 1800 CITIZENS WERE TAKEN OFF THE STREET AND PLACED INTO A DETENTION CENTER KNOWN AS PIER 57. THE PIER WAS CONTAMINATED WITH OIL AND ASBESTOS WHICH MADE MANY PEOPLE SICK INCLUDING THE POLICE WHO ARRESTED EVERYONE.

THIS IS AMERICAN DEMOCRACY?

Watch the video here:www.youtube.com/watch

www.chelseanow.com/cn_59/pier57cops.html

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dc.indymedia.org/newswire/display/109884/index.ph p

DOCUMENTS SHOW PIER 57 CONTAINED ASBESTOS, LEAD CONTAMINATION AND FIRE HAZARDS; HRPT AWARE OF CONTAMINATION PRIOR TO USE OF PIER TO DETAIN PROTESTORS

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Martial Law 9/11: Rise Of The Police State: Weapon Of Mass Enlightenment

Paul Joseph Watson | June 8, 2005

>> How multitudes of New Yorkers and others are fully aware of the fact that 9/11 was an inside job and are now actively exposing the people behind it.

>> Why the collapse of Building 7 is potentially the biggest smoking gun indicating government involvement in 9/11. Alex returns to the scene of the crime to physically dissect why the official story can be nothing else but a fraud.

>> How many of the RNC protesters are actually aiding what they claim to oppose by being deluded into thinking that a re-energization of the left will successfully counteract the Neo-Cons. Communists and socialists are confronted with the truth about the false left-right paradigm and their response only betrays their ignorance.

>> The awful truth about Michael Moore, a man with basic honest intentions but also a man who has been carefully shepherded by the culture creators to pose as the orthodoxy milquetoast of the true story behind 9/11. How Moore stood at the front of the protest for his photo-op and then spent the rest of his time eating tacos.

>> The occult and satanic underpinnings of the ruling elite families and how their oath to secret societies and each other makes a mockery of their counterfeit pseudo-loyalty to America and what it is supposed to stand for.

>> Arnold Schwarzenegger's alarming and sordid past and why his intentions should unnerve us all in light of his fated future presidential run. A womanizing, egotistic, power-mad, imperious Nazi whose ideals are diametrically opposed to those represented by the founding fathers.

Watch Martial Law 9/11 for free at google video:

PART  1: video.google.com/videoplay

PART 2: video.google.com/videoplay

PART 3: video.google.com/videoplay

Obama Fanatics Slam Author For Questioning 9/11

Establishment phonies, NY Times attempt to stoke feigned controversy over Corsi’s skepticism of official story, seemingly unaware that his doubts are shared by the majority of Americans

An army of frenzied Barack Obama acolytes have been busy attempting to smear writer Jerome Corsi, author of Obama Nation, by citing his skepticism towards the official 9/11 story, seemingly ignorant of the fact that such doubts are shared by the majority of Americans.

The New York Times also got in on the act with a sneering attempt to validate the attack on Corsi, which is being supported by Obama’s own campaign staff.

The coordinated smear attempt is obviously born out of the concern that Corsi’s 2004 book, Unfit for Command, basically sank John Kerry’s presidential bid because it was the inspiration behind the Swift Boat Veteran’s For Truth campaign.

The Times cites Corsi’s appearance “On Alex Jones’s radio show, a forum for those who take a deeply skeptical view of government claims about the attacks” and says that the video is “making the rounds, especially among Obama supporters”.

Well it must not be making it very far because as of writing the You Tube clip has little over 5,000 views which in terms of “viral” status is a drop in the ocean.

“The clip has Mr. Corsi discussing the findings of Steven Jones, physicist and hero of the “9/11 Truth” movement who claims to have evidence that the World Trade Center towers collapsed due to explosives inside the building, not just the planes hitting them, during the attacks,” reports the Times.

“The fire, from jet fuel, does not burn hot enough to produce the physical evidence that he’s produced,” Mr. Corsi said. “So when you’ve got science that the hypothesis doesn’t explain–evidence–then the hypothesis doesn’t stand anymore. It doesn’t mean there’s a new hypothesis you’ve validated. It just means the government’s explanation of the jet fuel fire is not a sufficient explanation to explain the evidence of these spheres–these microscopic spheres–that Steven Jones has proved existed within the W.T.C. dust.”

The NY Times simply reprints Corsi’s quotes verbatim as if the words alone are enough to shame him.

Jerome Corsi

“Every day we learn something new that completely undercuts Corsi’s credibility,” said Tommy Vietor, an Obama spokesman, in light of Mr. Corsi’s remarks about 9/11.

Here’s a newsflash for the New York Times and the mindless Obama cult members who think that questioning 9/11 is “controversial” and “undercuts credibility” - skepticism of the official 9/11 story is shared by the majority of Americans - according to the New York Times’ own poll on the subject!

In fact, it undercuts Obama’s credibility, in particular his meaningless sound bite platitude to stand for change, that he and his minions would so aggressively support an establishment position on 9/11 that even the government-appointed 9/11 Commission disbelieved.

An October 2006 CBS/New York Times poll found that a mere 16% of Americans thought the U.S. government was telling the truth about 9/11. A further 53% thought the White House was “hiding something” and 28% said they were “mostly lying”.

That’s 81% who do not trust the official version of events and 16% who do - with a further 3% in the “don’t know” category.

In case Obama’s campaign and its delirious followers are not too smart with their math - 16 per cent is not a majority. 81 per cent is a fairly clear indication of where the majority of Americans stand with regard to the official 9/11 story.

So Obama supporters and campaign managers - please stop it already with the feigned controversy and the hot air about Corsi questioning 9/11, he is simply voicing doubts shared by the majority of Americans, and as such, attempting to smear him on this issue is the height of stupidity.

Now go back to chanting your mindless empty slogans about “change” while attacking anyone who questions the status quo you seem so rabidly eager to protect.

Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet
Friday, August 15, 2008

 ______________________

Watch the lame youtube clip attempting to smear Corsi: www.youtube.com/watch

 

"They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety" -

Benjamin Franklin

___________________________________

 

Crime-ridden Arkansas town expands 24-hour curfew

Photo above: A Helena West police car is parked in a neighborhood where a curfew was established by the city's mayor Tuesday, Aug. 12, 2008 in Helena, Ark. Police will expand their 24-hour curfew patrols beyond the 10 blocks now watched by officers armed with military rifles and night-vision goggles, stopping and questioning anyone who passes by

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news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080813/ap_on_re_us/arkansas _town_curfew

By JON GAMBRELL, Associated Press Writer Wed Aug 13, 6:41 AM ET

HELENA-WEST HELENA, Ark. - Officers armed with military rifles have been stopping and questioning passers-by in a neighborhood plagued by violence that's been under a 24-hour curfew for a week.

On Tuesday, the Helena-West Helena City Council voted 9-0 to allow police to expand that program into any area of the city, despite a warning from a lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union of Arkansas that the police stops were unconstitutional.

Police Chief Fred Fielder said the patrols have netted 32 arrests since they began last week in a 10-block neighborhood in this small town on the banks of the Mississippi River long troubled by poverty. The council said those living in the city want the random shootings and drug-fueled violence to stop, no matter what the cost.

"Now if somebody wants to sue us, they have an option to sue, but I'm fairly certain that a judge will see it the way the way the citizens see it here," Mayor James Valley said. "The citizens deserve peace, that some infringement on constitutional rights is OK and we have not violated anything as far as the Constitution."

The area under curfew, in what used to be a West Helena neighborhood, sits among abandoned homes and occupied residences in disrepair.

White signs on large blue barrels warn those passing by that the area remains under curfew by order of Mayor James Valley. The order was scheduled to end at 3 p.m. Tuesday, but Valley said the city council's vote would allow police to have the same powers across Helena-West Helena.

Among the curfew operation's arrests, 10 came from felony charges, including the arrest of two people carrying both drugs and weapons, Fielder said. The police chief said the officers in the field carry military-style M-16 or M-4 rifles, some equipped with laser sights. Other officers carry short-barrel shotguns. Many dealing crack cocaine and marijuana in the city carry pistols and AK-47 assault rifles, he said.

"We've had people call us, expressing concern for their children," Fielder said. "They had to sleep on the floor, because of stray bullets."

Fielder said officers had not arrested anyone for violating the curfew, only questioned people about why they were outside. Those without good answers or acting nervously get additional attention, Fielder said.

However, such stops likely violate residents' constitutional rights to freely assemble and protections against unreasonable police searches, said Holly Dickson, a lawyer for the ACLU of Arkansas who addressed the council at its packed Tuesday meeting. Because of that, Dickson said any convictions coming from the arrests likely would be overturned.

"The residents of these high-crime areas are already victims," she said. "They're victims of what are happening in the neighborhoods, they're victims of fear. But for them to be subject to unlawful stops and questioning ... that is not going to ultimately going to help this situation."

The council rejected Dickson's claims, at one point questioning the Little Rock-based attorney if she'd live in a neighborhood they described as under siege by wild gunfire and gangs.

"As far as I'm concerned, at 3 o'clock in the morning, nobody has any business being on the street, except the law," Councilman Eugene "Red" Johnson said. "Anyone out at 3 o'clock shouldn't be out on the street, unless you're going to the hospital."

The curfew is the second under the mayor's watch since the rival cities of Helena and West Helena merged in 2006. That year, Valley set a nightly citywide curfew after a rash of burglaries and other thefts.

Police in Hartford, Conn., began enforcing a nightly curfew for youths after recent violence, including a weekend shooting that killed a man and wounded six young people.

Helena-West Helena, with 15,000 residents at the edge of Arkansas' eastern rice fields and farmland, is in one of the nation's poorest regions, trailing even parts of Appalachia in its standard of living.

In the curfew area, those inside the homes in the watch area peered out of door cracks Tuesday as police cruisers passed. They closed the doors afterward.

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www.youtube.com/watch

FCC Commissioner: Fairness Doctrine Could Lead To Government Regulation Of Web

FCC Commissioner Robert McDowell says that the potential re-introduction of the Fairness Doctrine under a Democratic administration could lead to “government dictating content policy” on the Internet.

The Fairness Doctrine was an FCC regulation mandating broadcasters afford time to opposing viewpoints. It was abolished in 1987 by the Supreme Court after it was found to be harmful to journalistic freedom and anathema to the First Amendment.

Speaking to the Business and Media Institute, McDowell stated that the Fairness Doctrine could return under a different name and be tagged on to the net neutrality debate, opening the door for the government to regulate content on the Web.

McDowell said the net neutrality effort could win the support of “a few isolated conservatives” who may not fully realize the long-term effects of government regulation.

“I think the fear is that somehow large corporations will censor their content, their points of view, right,” McDowell said. “I think the bigger concern for them should be if you have government dictating content policy, which by the way would have a big First Amendment problem,” said McDowell.

“Then, whoever is in charge of government is going to determine what is fair, under a so-called ‘Fairness Doctrine,’ which won’t be called that – it’ll be called something else,” McDowell said. “So, will Web sites, will bloggers have to give equal time or equal space on their Web site to opposing views rather than letting the marketplace of ideas determine that?” he added.

The reinstitution of the Fairness Doctrine has strong support amongst top Democratic powerbrokers and an effort to push it through under a different name is expected should Barack Obama secure the presidency.

In June, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told reporters that the Democratic caucus was interested in bringing back the Fairness Doctrine. Senators Richard Durbin and John Kerry have also publicly supported its return.

Neo-Con radio talk show hosts like Rush Limbaugh have long railed against the Fairness Doctrine, but its impact would be felt by all alternative news outlets, who would be forced to devote some of their time to parroting government talking points while enduring constant harassment and threat of closure.

Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet
Wednesday, August 13, 2008

Video 1: CNN Report Arkansas town on lockdown"Martial Law" : Let freedom ring! www.youtube.com/watch

2. (Left) Audio Via Youtube: John McCain tells the National Urban League that military-style invasions modeled on the surge in Iraq should be adopted to control inner city crime in the U.S. www.youtube.com/watch

 Video 3: Operation Sudden Impact.Three States Subjected To "Martial Law Sweeps"
Local, state police and sheriff's office join feds for "terror"sweeps that result in hundreds of citations for traffic violations www.youtube.com/watch

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“Martial Law” Declared in Arkansas Town

Steve Watson
Infowars.net
Monday, August 11, 2008

Areas of a town in Arkansas have been placed under a 24-hour, non-stop curfew described by the mayor as "almost akin to martial law".

The lockdown, issued after a spate of robberies, home invasions and shootings, applies to everyone in Helena-West Helena, no matter what age or what time of day it is.

Mayor James Valley has indicated that the curfew could be extended indefinitely.

Residents have described the lockdown as "like being in jail" and critics have slammed it as unconstitutional given that it effectively suspends the fourth amendment.

The ACLU of Arkansas has sent Mayor Valley a letter outlining these concerns:

"Imposing house arrest and suspending the Fourth Amendment for law-abiding people is only going to cause more problems for this city," said ACLU of Arkansas staff attorney Holly Dickson. "They need to work with the community to get this resolved instead of treating all of their citizens like criminals."

Such "domestic surges" with police imposing a martial law-style clampdown are now seemingly becoming standard procedure.

There are countless examples in recent months and years of curfews and lockdowns going into place in areas all across the country.

Only two months ago Trinidad, a "troubled" community in northeast D.C., was subject to police checkpoints after a series of shootings.

Earlier this year curfews for minors were introduced in Chicago.

Back in April we reported on the fact that federal law enforcement agencies co-opted sheriffs offices as well state and local police forces in three states for a vast round up operation that one sheriff’s deputy described as "martial law training".

The "anti-crime and anti-terrorism initiatives" involving officers from more than 50 federal, state and local agencies was dubbed "Operation Sudden Impact".

Earlier this month presumptive Republican nominee John McCain told the National Urban League that military-style invasions modeled on the surge in Iraq should be adopted to control inner city crime in the U.S.:

McCain: And some of those tactics — you mention the war in Iraq — are like that we use in the military. You go into neighborhoods, you clamp down, you provide a secure environment for the people that live there, and you make sure that the known criminals are kept under control. And you provide them with a stable environment and then they cooperate with law enforcement, etc, etc.

Civilian Genocide, Dead Americans Cost Of U.S.-Russia Proxy War

Media portrays US/NATO client state Georgia as victim despite war crimes provocation to launch conflict

The truth behind who is primarily responsible for the bloodshed unfolding in South Ossetia and surrounding areas has been buried by the western corporate media. Georgian forces, with a green light from NATO and the support of American and Ukrainian mercenaries, launched a brutal attack targeting civilians and Russian peacekeepers timed to coincide with the opening of the Beijing Olympics so as to temporarily deflect attention before the inevitable Russian response, by which time the global media machine kicked into high gear to smear Russia as the villains of the entire piece.

To accept such a characterization is not parroting Russian military propaganda, it is a reflection of the stone cold fact that Georgia was responsible for the first provocation - which itself amounted to a war crime - that launched the conflict.

That is not to hide from the fact that Russia’s unrelenting response continues to slaughter untold numbers of innocent people.

The initial Georgian bombardment of the provincial capital Tskhinvali was primarily directed to achieve maximum civilian casualties, with residential areas, hospitals and the university being targeted, leading to at least 1500 civilian deaths according to both western and Russian sources.

“The air and artillery bombardment left the provincial capital without water, food, electricity and gas. Horrified civilians crawled out of the basements into the streets as fighting eased, looking for supplies,” reported the Associated Press.

Reports of the initial carnage metered out by Georgian forces and the slaughter of Russian peacekeepers are difficult to find, because they have already been buried under the deluge of condemnation about Russia’s heavy-handed response.

American citizen and resident of South Ossetia Joe Mestas described the war crimes he witnessed being carried out by Georgian forces, back by U.S. support, against innocent civilians.

Watch the Video clip.(Above Left)

Link: www.youtube.com/watch

“I thought that since U.S. is supporting Georgia there would be some control over the situation in South Ossetia and that there would be a peaceful solution to the conflict. But what is happening there now it’s not just war, but war crimes. George Bush and [Georgian president] Mikhail Saakashvili should answer to the crimes that are being committed – the killing of innocent people, running over by tanks of children and women, throwing grenades into cellars where people are hiding,” Mestas said.

“The war is when military fight against military. But the Georgian army is killing innocent civilians. This is genocide,” he added.

A prime example of media bias in shielding Georgia from responsibility for the carnage is the fact that news outlets like the BBC continue to report that 1500 civilians have been killed in Georgia, with the obvious inference being that these are victims of the Russian onslaught. But these victims were not killed in Georgia, they were killed in Ossetia - by Georgian forces.

As the Chimes of Freedom Blog elaborates, “While the Ossetians claimed over 1000 dead the BBC neither reported this or any newsreel coming out of Ossetia showing the destruction caused by the Georgian shelling of the breakaway republic. All we are getting is one-sided reports of the destruction being caused by the Russians.”

“The BBC is giving carte blanche to the Georgian point-of-view to be aired on its services while nothing whatsoever is being heard from the Ossetian side. The BBC’s repetitive playing of a statement by George Bush, given several days ago, without balancing these against statements from the Russian side indicates where the BBC is coming from.”

Other mainstream news outlets are either aping the portrayal of Georgia, which enjoys the support of the American empire and NATO, as a poor isolated little country under brutal assault by the big bully Russia, or simply ignoring events altogether and obsessing about John Edwards’ extramarital affair.

In reality, Georgia is being used as a proxy client state through which the U.S. and NATO are advancing their geopolitical motives - to the cost of Ossetian, Georgian and Russian civilians alike caught in the middle of the carnage.

As Professor Michel Chossudovsky explains, “Georgia is an outpost of US and NATO forces, on the immediate border of the Russian Federation and within proximity of the Middle East Central Asian war theater. South Ossetia is also at the crossroads of strategic oil and gas pipeline routes.”

“Georgia does not act militarily without the assent of Washington. The Georgian head of State is a US proxy and Georgia is a de facto US protectorate.”

The price of the U.S. and NATO’s latest proxy war is already being paid with the deaths of thousands of innocent civilians - along with American mercenaries supporting Georgian forces.

According to the president of South Ossetia, Eduard Kokoity, the bodies of black men were found at the site of one battle near a school.

Russian envoy Dmitry Medoyev indicated the men may have been American mercenaries.

“In yesterday’s attack, the advancing tanks were supposedly crewed by Ukrainians. Two unidentified bodies found today are said to have black skin. Possibly they are Americans but we can’t say for sure yet. We will be able to publish the official conclusions after carrying out special tests,” Medoyev said.

Last month, the United States, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Armenia, and Ukraine conducted Immediate Response 2008, a joint training exercise said to be in “spirit of the NATO Partnership for Peace program,” according to Blackanthem Military News. Immediate Response 2008 was held at the Vaziani Military Base in Georgia.

In another report, a woman interviewed by Russia Today in Tskhinvali, South Ossetia, talked about the presence of Georgian troops with American insignias. “There are lots of bodies over there, a lot of people have been killed, mostly Ossetians, but also Georgians, they had American emblems on their forearms and they were in black uniforms,” she said.

Black uniforms are a trademark of Blackwater and DynCorp mercenaries (see Chris Hedges, America’s Holy Warriors). DynCorp’s presence in Eastern Europe is well documented, particularly in occupied Bosnia where it engaged in sex-trafficking and prostitution.

In a Friday press conference, Chairman of Russia’s State Duma Security Committee Vladimir Vasilyev said without U.S. aid, Tbilisi would have been unable to start military operation in South Ossetia. “The further the situation unfolds, the more the world will understand that Georgia would never be able to do all this without America,” said Vasilyev. “In essence, the Americans have prepared the force, which destroys everything in South Ossetia, attacks civilians and hospitals.”

It is entirely feasible the U.S. has “prepared the force” with mercenaries as well.

Michel Chossudovsky explores the reasoning behind Georgia’s act of provocation that launched the conflict.

US-NATO military and intelligence planners invariably examine various “scenarios” of a proposed military operation– i.e. in this case, a limited Georgian attack largely directed against civilian targets, with a view to inflicting civilian casualties.

The examination of scenarios is a routine practice. With limited military capabilities, a Georgian victory and occupation of Tskhinvali, was an impossibility from the outset. And this was known and understood to US-NATO military planners.

A humanitarian disaster rather than a military victory was an integral part of the scenario. The objective was to destroy the provincial capital, while also inflicting a significant loss of human life.

If the objective were to restore Georgian political control over the provincial government, the operation would have been undertaken in a very different fashion, with Special Forces occupying key public buildings, communications networks and provincial institutions, rather than waging an all out bombing raid on residential areas, hospitals, not to mention Tskhinvali’s University.

The Russian response was entirely predictable.

Georgia was “encouraged” by NATO and the US. Both Washington and NATO headquarters in Brussels were acutely aware of what would happen in the case of a Russian counterattack.

The question is: was this a deliberate provocation intended to trigger a Russian military response and suck the Russians into a broader military confrontation with Georgia (and allied forces) which could potentially escalate into an all out war?

With rhetoric from figures like President Bush and Condoleezza Rice becoming increasingly heated towards Russia, the potential for an escalation in tensions is readily apparent.

Only the most naive would believe that the U.S. missile defense shield is anything other than a bulwark against Russian military expansion, and Russia’s response in resuming bomber patrols across the Atlantic sends a clear message.

Knowing that Americans remain completely unconvinced about the necessity of attacking Iran, have the Neo-Cons in control of the White House lit the blue touch paper for a wider war that could swing the U.S. election in favor of pro-war candidate John McCain?

Or is this merely payback for Russia lending their expertise in building Iranian nuclear reactors?

The motives will become clear in due course but what’s certain is that innocent lives will continue to be lost as the American empire lurches into its next theatre of conflict and the Neo-Cons play a deadly game that could have devastating wider consequences.

Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet
Monday, August 11, 2008

www.prisonplanet.com/civilian-genocide-dead-ameri cans-cost-of-us-russia-proxy-war.html

Update:

American Mercenary Captured By Russians

NATO instructor taken hostage with Georgians amid reports of U.S. military commanding thousands of mercs in proxy war

Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet
Monday, August 11, 2008

An American mercenary has been captured by Russian forces along with a number of Georgian soldiers according to a report from the Russian news website Izvestia, providing more evidence that the U.S. and NATO are covertly supporting the Georgian army in a proxy war with Russia.

According to the report, the mercenary is an African-American who is a NATO instructor and an ordinance specialist. He has now been transferred to the Russian base of Vladikavkaz.

The story also backs up previous reports of dead black Americans having been found in Tskhinvali, the capital city of South Ossetia.

U.S. soldiers recently conducted training programs where they instructed Georgian soldiers how to deal with unexploded ordinance as part of the Georgia Train and Equip Program.

Another report from the Russia daily Kommersant states that thousands of mercenaries from numerous different countries are fighting on the Georgian side and are being “commanded by the U.S. military instructors.”

“The U.S. military instructors directly command and coordinate actions of mercenaries without being involved in actual fighting, the source specified. According to intelligence data, there are roughly 1,000 military instructors of the United States in Georgia,” states the report.

“Task force of Russia has annihilated a few groups of mercenaries. Some of mercenaries have been captured, and investigators are working with them, the source said.”

In a related development, Russia FSB has detained 10 Georgian intelligence service officers who were allegedly preparing terrorist attacks inside Russia.

“We have detained 10 agents of the Georgian special services who were spying on military facilities and preparing terrorist attacks, including on Russian territory,” Alexander Bortnikov said at a meeting with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev.

Russia has today launched new forays into Georgia itself even after Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili signed a cease-fire pledge. Russia claims that Georgia has not honored the cease-fire and continues to attack Russian positions.

---------------------------------------------

Flashback:  July. 15, 2008  Reuters/MSNBC

www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25684774/

U.S.-Georgia training begins amid Russia strain

Officials: Exercises unrelated to friction between Moscow, ex-Soviet state

updated 8:34 a.m. PT, Tues., July. 15, 2008

VAZIANI, Georgia - One thousand U.S. troops began a military training exercise in Georgia on Tuesday against a backdrop of growing friction between Georgia and neighboring Russia.

Officials said the exercise, called "Immediate Response 2008," had been planned for months and was not linked to a stand-off between Moscow and Tbilisi over two Russian-backed separatists regions of Georgia.

The United States is an ally of Georgia and has irritated Russia by backing Tbilisi's bid to join the NATO military alliance.

"The main purpose of these exercises is to increase the cooperation and partnership between U.S. and Georgian forces," Brig. Gen. William B. Garrett, commander of the U.S. military's Southern European Task Force, told reporters.

The war games involve 600 Georgian troops and smaller numbers from ex-Soviet Armenia, Azerbaijan and Ukraine.

The two-week exercise was taking place at the Vaziani military base near the capital Tbilisi, which was a Russian air force base until Russian forces withdrew at the start of this decade under a European arms reduction agreement.

Close cooperation
Georgia and the Pentagon cooperate closely. Georgia has a 2,000-strong contingent supporting the U.S.-led coalition in Iraq, and Washington provides training and equipment to the Georgian military.

Georgia last week recalled its ambassador in Moscow in protest at Russia sending fighter jets into Georgian airspace. Tbilisi urged the West to condemn Russia's actions.

Russia said the flights were to prevent Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili from launching a military operation against the separatist South Ossetia region.

Moscow accuses Saakashvili of preparing to restore Tbilisi's control over South Ossetia and the second breakaway region of Abkhazia by force. Tbilisi says that is a pretext for Russia to effectively annex large chunks of Georgian territory.

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More Evidence of U.S. Complicity in S. Ossetia Invasion

Kurt Nimmo
Infowars
August 10, 2008

www.infowars.com/

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Video: The president of South Ossetia claims mercenaries took part in Georgia’s offensive against the breakaway republic, according to Russia’s RIA news agency. Eduard Kokoity says Ukrainians, people from the Baltics as well as nationals from other countries were involved.

Video One: www.youtube.com/watch

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Video: At 10 minutes, 30 seconds into this video, a South Ossetian woman claims Georgian troops had American emblems.

Video Two: www.youtube.com/watch

_______________________________

As the corporate media in the United States covers volleyball at the Olympics in China and pours endlessly over the marital infidelity of CFR darling John Edwards, the media in Russia is reporting the war in South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

Earlier today, RIA-Novosti’s Russia Today TV broadcast a report detailing possible U.S. involvement in the conflict. Eduard Kokoity, the president of South Ossetia told Russia Today Ukrainians and mercenaries from the Baltics as well as nationals from other countries were involved in the fighting, as “foreigners have been found among their bodies.” Dmitry Medoev, the South Ossetian envoy to Russia, confirms this claim. “In yesterday’s most recent tank attack, the advancing tanks were supposedly crewed by Ukrainians. Two unidentified bodies found today are said to be black, possibly they are Americans, but we can’t say for sure yet.”

Russia’s Daily Online newspaper, Kommersant, also reported the presence of foreign mercenaries:

Authorities in the unrecognized republic of South Ossetia claim that dark-skinned mercenaries took part in the attack on Tskhinvali, reports RIA Novosti, citing representative of the South Ossetian president in Russia Dmitry Medoev. He said there were bodies of many Georgian soldiers on the streets on Tskhinvali. “There were blacks among the dead, who were probably either mercenaries or instructors in the Georgian armed forces,” Medoev said.

South Ossetian President Eduard Kokoity had said earlier that mercenaries were fighting with the Georgian forces. That information has not been confirmed in Tbilisi.

Last month, the United States, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Armenia, and Ukraine conducted Immediate Response 2008, a joint training exercise said to be in “spirit of the NATO Partnership for Peace program,” according to Blackanthem Military News. Immediate Response 2008 was held at the Vaziani Military Base in Georgia.

In another report, a woman interviewed by Russia Today in Tsknivali, South Ossetia, talked about the presence of Georgian troops with American insignias. “There are lots of bodies over there, a lot of people have been killed, mostly Ossetians, but also Georgians, they had American emblems on their forearms and they were in black uniforms,” she said.

Black uniforms are a trademark of Blackwater and DynCorp mercenaries (see Chris Hedges, America’s Holy Warriors). DynCorp’s presence in Eastern Europe is well documented, particularly in occupied Bosnia where it engaged in sex-trafficking and prostitution.

In a Friday press conference, Chairman of Russia’s State Duma Security Committee Vladimir Vasilyev said without U.S. aid, Tbilisi would have been unable to start military operation in South Ossetia. “The further the situation unfolds, the more the world will understand that Georgia would never be able to do all this without America,” said Vasilyev. “In essence, the Americans have prepared the force, which destroys everything in South Ossetia, attacks civilians and hospitals.”

It is entirely feasible the U.S. has “prepared the force” with mercenaries as well.

______________________________

Did U.S., Israel Provocateur S. Ossetia Conflict? Does the Sun Come Up in the Morning?

Kurt Nimmo
Infowars
August 9, 2008

Dead civilians in South Ossetia. But you will not hear much about it on CNN or Faux News. Because they are too busy reporting ad nauseam about the extramarital shenanigans of CFR darling John Edwards.

In order to find out what’s really going on in Georgia, you have to read the international press on the internet. Bush, McCain, and Obama may cast blame on Russia, but reading the international press you get a different perspective.

Russia accuses U.S. of orchestrating conflict

“Russian officials believe that it was the USA that orchestrated the current conflict. The chairman of the State Duma Committee for Security, Vladimir Vasilyev, believes that the current conflict is South Ossetia is very reminiscent to the wars in Iraq and Kosovo,” reports Pravda, the Russian newspaper.

Recall the CIA admitting it “helped to train the Kosovo Liberation Army before Nato’s bombing of Yugoslavia,” according to The Sunday Times. The KLA is a perfect outfit for the CIA. “Known for its extensive links to Albanian and European crime syndicates, the KLA was supported from the outset in the mid-1990s by the CIA and Germany’s intelligence agency, the Bundes Nachrichten Dienst (BND). In the course of the 1999 war, the KLA was supported directly by NATO,” writes Michel Chossudovsky. “The KLA had extensive links to Al Qaeda, which was also involved in military training. Mujahideen mercenaries from a number of countries integrated the ranks of the KLA, which was involved in terrorist activities as well as political assassinations.” Of course, “links to Al Qaeda” translate into links to the CIA.

“The things that were happening in Kosovo, the things that were happening in Iraq – we are now following the same path. The further the situation unfolds, the more the world will understand that Georgia would never be able to do all this without America. South Ossetian defense officials used to make statements about imminent aggression from Georgia, but the latter denied everything, whereas the US Department of State released no comments on the matter. In essence, they have prepared the force, which destroys everything in South Ossetia, attacks civilians and hospitals. They are responsible for this. The world community will learn about it,” Vasilyev told Pravda.

Indeed, the world will learn about it, but not by way of America’s corporate media, more interested in the entirely meaningless baby-making of Clay Aiken and Jaymes Foster. Bread and circuses shall suffice in America.

U.S. loads up Georgia with weapons to fight “al-Qaeda”

The Federation of American Scientists website reveals that Georgia

is the most recent recipient of U.S. weapons and aid, receiving 10 UH-1H Huey helicopters (four for spare parts only) and $64 million in military aid and training to fight Arab soldiers with alleged ties to Al Qaeda that have been participating in the Chechen war and are now taking refuge in the Pankisi Gorge region in northern Georgia. Like many of the recent aid recipients, claims that Georgia has become an al Qaeda sanctuary are dubious at best.

“The rapid increase in US strategic influence in the Caucasus has alarmed Russian policy planners. Moscow is keen to take steps to shore up its eroding position in the region. However, Russian officials have limited options with which to counter US moves while at the same time maintaining cordial relations with Washington,” Eurasia.net reported on April 8, 2002. “The most prominent US moves in the Caucasus are the decision to dispatch military advisers to Georgia and a March 29 State Department announcement on the lifting of an arms embargo imposed on Armenia and Azerbaijan. Both actions have the potential to tilt the military establishments of all three Caucasus nations away from Russia and towards NATO.”

Imagine Canada decided to enter a military and diplomatic alliance with Russia and Canada began arming itself to the teeth with Russian weapons and training with Russian military advisers. Can you guess what the reaction of Bush and the neocons would be?

It doesn’t take much imagination.

Video: www.youtube.com/watch

In the wake of Georgia’s much vaunted — by the U.S. corporate media — “revolution,” the installed government of autocrat Mikheil Saakashvilli wasted little time imposing “democracy” neocon-style, resulting in violent suppression of opposition political rallies. “Georgia was rocked by opposition rallies for six days last November as protesters occupied central Tbilisi demanding Saakashvili’s resignation over allegations of corruption and increasing authoritarianism,” reported RIA Novosti. “The Georgian leader responded by sending in riot police to crack down on protesters on November 7. Over 500 people were injured according to Human Rights Watch as police used rubber bullets, tear gas and water cannons to break up the demonstrations.” In addition, Saakashvilli’s goons used “non-lethal” weapons of the sort developed by the Pentagon (see video).

U.S. military holds “exercises” in Georgia immediately prior to conflict

Last month, Aljazeera reported that “a total of around 1,650 soldiers form the US, Georgia and several other East European countries, have begun exercises on the formerly Russian-controlled Vaziani base, the Georgian defense ministry said.”

NowPublic reported on July 17:

US officials insist the long-planned wargames have nothing to do with the recent dispute between Russia and Georgia over the breakaway Georgian regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. But they give Washington a chance to support pro-west Tbilisi at a critical time.

If you believe this, I have a bridge for sale.

CIA engineered Georgia’s Rose Revolution

Of course, this al-Qaeda presence is not so dubious when one considers the well documented fact the supposed Islamic terror group is a CIA contrivance. As well, this absurd concern for al-Qaeda’s presence under Georgian beds helped make possible Georgia’s so-called Rose Revolution. “The Rose Revolution was not a simple uprising but was aided by the CIA and Ambassador Richard Miles (think Serbia). From early 2002 onwards the CIA had been operating in Georgia, supposedly to combat Al Qaeda,” explains researcher James Schneider.

In the wake of Georgia’s much vaunted — by the U.S. corporate media — “revolution,” the installed government of autocrat Mikheil Saakashvilli wasted little time imposing “democracy” neocon-style, resulting in violent suppression of opposition political rallies. “Georgia was rocked by opposition rallies for six days last November as protesters occupied central Tbilisi demanding Saakashvili’s resignation over allegations of corruption and increasing authoritarianism,” reported RIA Novosti. “The Georgian leader responded by sending in riot police to crack down on protesters on November 7. Over 500 people were injured according to Human Rights Watch as police used rubber bullets, tear gas and water cannons to break up the demonstrations.” In addition, Saakashvilli’s goons used “non-lethal” weapons of the sort developed by the Pentagon (see video).

www.youtube.com/watch

U.S. military holds “exercises” in Georgia immediately prior to conflict

Last month, Aljazeera reported that “a total of around 1,650 soldiers form the US, Georgia and several other East European countries, have begun exercises on the formerly Russian-controlled Vaziani base, the Georgian defense ministry said.”

NowPublic reported on July 17:

US officials insist the long-planned wargames have nothing to do with the recent dispute between Russia and Georgia over the breakaway Georgian regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. But they give Washington a chance to support pro-west Tbilisi at a critical time.

If you believe this, I have a bridge for sale.

In fact, these “long-planned wargames” were so important the State Department packed up and shipped off Condi Rice to Georgia. Her arrival was nicely timed to coincide with “a deadly firefight between Georgian troops and separatists in a Russian-backed breakaway region…. Ahead of Rice’s arrival, a senior State Department official who did not want to be identified told reporters that unchecked conflict in the region could lead to catastrophe. The official also said Moscow should realize its Soviet empire is gone.”

Catastrophe, indeed, although Russia’s response to Georgia’s invasion of South Ossetia demonstrated Russia’s resolve to reclaim its supposedly evaporated empire.

Israel gets in on the act

Let’s not forget America’s junior partner in chaos and mass murder, Israel. “In addition to the spy drones, Israel has also been supplying Georgia with infantry weapons and electronics for artillery systems, and has helped upgrade Soviet-designed Su-25 ground attack jets assembled in Georgia, according to Koba Liklikadze, an independent military expert based in Tbilisi. Former Israeli generals also serve as advisers to the Georgian military,” reports the International Herald Tribune.

No wonder the horrific photos emerging from South Ossetia have that Lebanon invasion look about them. Israel has over fifty years of experience in invading small countries and has consistently specialized in murdering and tormenting civilians.

Blind eyes all around

As Lavrov explains it, the “Georgian administration has found the use to its arms, which they have been purchasing during the recent several years… We have repeatedly warned that the international community should not turn a blind eye on massive purchases of offensive arms, in which the Georgian administration has been involved during the recent two years.”

Unfortunately, the international community will likely “turn a blind eye” to the U.S. and Israel arming, training, and obviously orchestrating the current conflict, same as they by and large turned a blind eye to Israel’s criminal invasion of Lebanon back in 2005 and the U.S. invasion and ongoing occupation of Iraq. In regard to the latter, the “international community” — indeed, the whole of the American people — are so disorganized and demoralized they cannot address the simple fact the neocons lied a nation into war. Nixon was bounced for far less.

It looks like Russia will be obliged to deal with Georgia’s treachery on its own. Regrettably, Russia’s response will entail even more murder of innocents and wholesale destruction, as this is how government historically deals with threats – real, imagined, or provocateured.

Go Jimmy Justice!!  More people need to do what Jimmy Justice does. Just today a scumbag cop in an unmarked car pulled out right in front of me like he owned the road. The cop then laughed like he was some sort of high & mighty lord. Hey cops....you are not above the law. You guys are civil servants. Not Law Enforcers Or Authorities. WE THE PEOPLE  PAY YOUR MORTGAGE. I know a lot of you working as officers are good people but take a look around you. You can't always turn a blind eye. If  they can use surveillance against us,we can do the same damn thing back. "Parking Enforcers".....what a joke. Keep acquiescing to the police state sheeple. This goes out to all of you with badges. YOU WORK FOR WE THE PEOPLE. Get that straight!! You are not our Gods. You guys make me sick!! 

Video 1:www.youtube.com/watch

Video 2: www.youtube.com/watch

Video 3: www.youtube.com/watch

You have your cameras.......

Well we have ours on you too!!

___________________________

New York's Video Vigilante, Scourge of Parking Enforcers

www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/200 8/08/02/AR2008080201503.html

The man who calls himself "Jimmy Justice" roams New York with a video camera to find illegally parked government cars. He puts his videos online, trying to shame parking enforcers into obeying laws they ticket others for violating. (By Keith B. Richburg -- The Washington Post)

'Jimmy Justice' Posts Images of Officers Breaking the Law

By Keith B. Richburg
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, August 3, 2008; A04

NEW YORK -- He calls himself "Jimmy Justice," a self-styled "cop-arazzi," armed only with a video camera as he prowls the streets of New York looking for law enforcement officers who are breaking the law. His targets are illegally parked city government vehicles -- particularly cars of traffic cops blocking bus stops, sitting in "no parking" zones or double-parked.

Cop cars blocking fire hydrants make him particularly incensed.

"Something like that is just despicable," Jimmy fumed, pointing to a police enforcement vehicle parked next to a fire hydrant on 33rd Street on Manhattan's West Side on a muggy July afternoon. "They're never allowed to block a fire hydrant -- but they do it."

He posts his best videos on YouTube and sends regular e-mail to the union representing the city's traffic enforcement agents, pointing out the most egregious parking offenses. And he has gotten results, he said, with some parking enforcers being fined because of his videos.

"I'm using a video camera as a weapon," he said. "I believe a video does not lie."

He is a fairly big, stocky guy, and with his brusque and hectoring manner, he has been described as obnoxious, self-righteous and worse.

"He acts like an adolescent," said James Huntley, the president of the traffic enforcers union. "I believe he's a big kid, or he wouldn't go around intimidating people who are just doing their job."

But in the digital age, Jimmy Justice represents a new kind of citizen vigilante at a time, particularly in New York, when amateur videos are increasingly being used to hold law enforcers to account and shine a public spotlight on their excesses.

Within the past week, two videos have surfaced showing what appears to be police misconduct in New York. In one video, viewed more than 1 million times on YouTube, a police officer is seen charging a bicyclist and knocking him to the ground during a July 25 group bicycle ride through Times Square -- despite the officer's sworn complaint that the cyclist tried to run him down.

A few days later, a separate video appeared, showing another police officer apparently swinging a baton and beating a handcuffed suspect lying on the ground during a July 4 arrest.

The police department has been stung by the incidents, and the officers involved have had their badges and guns taken away while the department investigates. Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly said there will soon be a way for people with videos of crimes -- and incidents of police misconduct -- to send them directly to the police through 911.

In the eyes of civil libertarians and others who have long complained about police excesses under New York's "zero tolerance" policy, the increasingly common use of video by ordinary citizens has started to shift the balance away from law enforcement officials in questions of official misconduct.

"I think the proliferation of video technology does, in some sense, level the playing field," said Donna Lieberman, executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union. "When we think about the citizen eyewitnesses that have brought to light some egregious police conduct that no one would have believed, the benefit is unquestionable."

However, the police union cautions that videos do not always give the entire picture, and officers worry about a flood of citizen videos by people who might not understand that police work is sometimes a messy business.

"The use of force sometimes looks violent," said Patrick Lynch, president of the Patrolmen's Benevolent Association. "Pieces of video don't tell the whole story." With the police commissioner openly asking for citizen videos, Lynch said, "he's going to have to be very careful not to bow to public pressure and not bow to emotion."

Jimmy Justice -- a pseudonym he chose because it echoes "Give me justice" -- believes all residents of New York should be digitally armed and ready for action. "I think everyone should get a video camera," he said. "Or, if you have to get a new cellphone, get one with a video function." And when people get video of cops behaving badly, he said, "send it in to your local authorities. Or post it on YouTube or other video-sharing sites."

He might sound obsessed. But Jimmy insists he is just a normal guy from Brooklyn, with a job, a girlfriend, a social life and hobbies, including playing guitar in a band. Jimmy Justice's crusade, he said, is against what he calls the city's double standard on parking. Uniformed agents relentlessly -- some say ruthlessly -- enforce parking rules in a city where spaces are scarce, but they violate those same rules when on personal business, such as stopping for lunch or running errands.

"You can call it a vendetta if you want, because that's what it is," Jimmy said. "It's about the city's predatory policy of ticketing to raise revenue." When traffic enforcers park illegally, he said, "it's an unfair double standard."

Sometimes it gets ugly out there. In the two years since he began making his videos, Jimmy said, he has been threatened, punched and spit on, and has had cameras smashed to the ground. He said he does not disclose his real name because he fears retaliation by someone whom he has made an unwilling YouTube star.

And Jimmy admits that he occasionally crosses the line, sometimes verbally berating traffic enforcers.

"You ought to be ashamed of yourself!" he shouts in a video at one enforcer who was in a restaurant buying lunch while her car was parked next to a fire hydrant -- as firetrucks arrived outside for an emergency. "Are you on drugs?" Jimmy shouts at her.

"I definitely try to pick it up when the camera is on," he conceded. "I want to make entertaining videos."

And that is precisely what infuriates Huntley, president of Communications Workers of America Local 1182, which represents the city's 2,500 traffic enforcement agents and sanitation workers.

"Sometimes we do have to make U-turns. Sometimes we do have to park here and there," Huntley said. "This man wants to glorify himself and get some ratings."

Huntley said he is more concerned about traffic agents facing harassment and assaults in the streets for simply doing their jobs. In April, Gov. David A. Paterson signed a new law that makes an assault on a traffic enforcement agent a felony punishable by up to seven years in prison.

"We can have him arrested for menacing or stalking," Huntley said of Jimmy, signaling a possible new confrontation in the streets. "For too long, we've been abused by the public and the media. We're not going to be a punching bag anymore in New York City."

View all comments that have been posted about this article.

Outside The Box
Host: Alex Ansary
Website: www.alexansary.com
Program Archives
Call-in Number: (512) 646-1984
Time: Wednesdays 10pm - 12 midnight CST ( 8 pm pst)

Alex Ansary was born and raised in the Pacific Northwest. His program focuses primarily on the growing police state being established internationally, and it's connection the technologically sophisticated world of surviellance. Each program is geared to challenge the listener into questioning the offical view of reality that's presented by the mainstream media. This show goes 'outside the box' and questions what it truely means to be a free human being living on planet Earth today. You can also view the weekly live TV program in Portland, Oregon on Comcast Cable Channel 11, Every Thursday night at 7pm, or by visiting www.alexansary.com.    View Alex's 100th Cable Access Show Here

Listen to the show here: www.wtprn.com/listen.shtml

Vaccine Cover-Up Worst In Military History

Youtube
Monday, Aug 4, 2008

This news item is a shocking story about how the US government is killing it’s own soldiers, by giving them shot of a vaccine that is causing severe reactions and illnesses.
How can any civilised government do this to it’s own people.
Just imagine the horror they are inflicting upon the people of Iraq.

Tuesday, August 5, 2008

Explained: Why The Anthrax Strain Was Found in Ivins' Office

georgewashington2.blogspot.com/2008/08/explained- anthrax-in-ivins-office.html

The government's central piece of evidence against Bruce Ivins is that it has found anthrax in Ivins' lab that matches the anthrax letters exactly.

Pretty persuasive, right?

No, actually . . .

According to a story today in Time Magazine:

"It is hard to understand why the match could not simply be explained by the lab's prominent involvement in the federal investigation, notes Randall Larsen, a retired Air Force colonel and a senior associate at the Center for Biosecurity, University of Pittsburgh Medical Center.

The FBI itself sent the anthrax letters to Ivins and his colleagues at the biodefense lab for analysis "almost immediately" following the attacks in 2001, confirms Caree Vander-Linden, a spokesperson for the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases, where Ivins worked."

"A group of people have access to the anthrax at any given lab. 'What you can do with all those forensic techniques is trace the anthrax to a lab, but you can't trace it to a person,' says Meryl Nass, a Maine doctor who studies the anthrax vaccine and was a professional acquaintance of Ivins for over 15 years. What's more, Nass adds, the link is not accurate with 100% certainty. 'You can't convict someone with that evidence.' "

Tuesday, August 5, 2008

Colonel Anderson Refutes False Allegations Against Dr. Ivins

georgewashington2.blogspot.com/2008/08/colonel-an derson-refutes-false.html

Colonel Arthur Anderson is the chief of human use and ethics at the United States Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID), the bioweapons facility where Dr. Ivins worked and where the anthrax strains were apparently obtained by the anthrax killer.

In that position, Colonel Anderson's responsibilities include the following jobs:

"Conduct inquiries and investigations upon receipt of allegations of scientific misconduct or improper researcher behavior.

***

Prepare timely and intensive fact-finding reviews of minimal risk protocols that qualify for expedited review; ... Advise senior officials in writing of the approvability of protocols, and addenda; ... Conduct substantive continuing review of active protocols; ... Investigate issues arising during conduct of studies"

Colonel Anderson is also a highly-respected scientist in his own right (a pathologist).

Anderson disputes two of the government allegations against Dr. Ivins.

First, he disputes the allegation that Ivins told no one that he had found anthrax in his lab for many months. Specifically, as reported in today's

:

"Col. Anderson says Dr. Ivins told him about the lapse in safety shortly after it occurred, contradicting Army findings in 2002 that Dr. Ivins had told no one."

Anderson's role as the person in charge of "conduct[ing] inquiries and investigations upon receipt of allegations of scientific misconduct or improper researcher behavior" and of "investigat[ing] issues arising during conduct of studies" is therefore important. He was an appropriate person for Ivins to speak to about his anthrax tests (admittedly, protocol required Ivins to tell others as well; but the fact that Ivins told Anderson shows good faith and a lack of guilty conscience on Ivins' part).

Second, Anderson says that social worker Jean Duley's conduct was

. Anderson, as an ethics expert and someone who knew Ivins well, simply doesn't buy Duley's allegations.

The Anthrax Attacks and the Assault on Civil Liberties

By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS

counterpunch.com/roberts08052008.html

In last weekend’s edition of CounterPunch, Alexander Cockburn updates the ongoing persecution of Sami Al-Arian by federal prosecutors. Al-Arian was a Florida university professor of computer science who was ensnared by the Bush Regime’s need to produce “terrorists” in order to keep Americans fearful and, thereby, amenable to the Bush Regime’s assault on US civil liberties.

The charges against Al-Arian were rejected by a jury, but the Bush Regime could not accept the obvious defeat. If Al-Arian was not a terrorist, then other of the Bush Regime’s fabricated cases might fall apart, too.

In open view, the US Department of Justice (sic) proceeded to trash every known ethical rule of prosecution. I don’t need to repeat the facts, as they are covered by Cockburn’s articles and in The Tyranny of Good Intentions.

Instead, I want to point out another meaning of the Al-Arian case. The Justice (sic) Department itself knows that it is persecuting a totally innocent person for reasons of a political agenda--the need to convince gullible Americans of an ongoing terrorist threat. The existence of this threat is used to justify the Bush Regime’s adoption of police state measures, such as spying on Americans without warrants, arresting them without charges, and refusing to let go of them when they are cleared by juries.

Sami Al-Arian is a fabricated terrorist created by federal prosecutors and judges in behalf of an undeclared agenda. The Al-Arian case proves that terrorists are in short supply and that the Bush Regime has had to create them out of total innocents. The “war on terror” is a hoax used to justify war crimes and the overthrow of America’s civil liberties.

The anthrax scare is one more example of the Bush Regime’s use of disinformation to advance an undeclared political agenda. As Glenn Greenwald reminded us last week in Salon, the Bush Regime used Brian Ross at ABC News to spread the lie far and wide that US government tests proved that the anthrax mailed to various Americans, including prominent US Senators, was made in Iraq by Saddam Hussein. This lie was essential for scaring Congress into passing the Bush Regime’s Gestapo laws, such as the PATRIOT Act, and for overcoming opposition to invading Iraq.

When it leaked out that the anthrax actually came from a US government lab, the Bush Regime tried to frame a US scientist, Steven J. Hatfill, but failed. On June 28th, the Los Angeles Times reported that Hatfill, “The former Army scientist who was the prime suspect in the deadly 2001 anthrax mailings agreed Friday to take $5.82 million from the government to settle his claim that the Justice Department and the FBI invaded his privacy and ruined his career.” Indeed, U.S. District Court Judge Reggie B. Walton allowed Hatfill’s attorneys two years to review all news reports and FBI evidence. Judge Walton stated: “there is not a scintilla of evidence that would indicate that Dr. Hatfill had anything to do with this.”

The anthrax matter was again news last week when another US government scientist, Bruce E. Ivins, “committed suicide.” Instantly, the deceased Ivins was fingered as the culprit. Overnight a man, liked and respected by his colleagues, who had worked on American biological warfare weapons for years, became a deranged homicidal maniac who decided to murder Americans at random in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 by sending them letters containing anthrax.

I don’t believe a word of it. But assume that it is true. Blaming the anthrax letters on Ivins does not resolve the issue of why the Bush Regime lied to Brian Ross and used ABC to put the blame on Saddam Hussein in order to invade an innocent country. Wouldn’t a government that would lie about something this serious lie about other serious matters?

The Bush Regime stands against against the truth. That is why it pretends to have the power to prevent executive branch officials wanted for questioning by Congress from appearing before the people’s representatives. Nothing could make clearer the contempt that the Bush Regime has for the American people and their elected representatives than its arrogant claim that it is unanswerable to them.

Obviously, neither the President nor the Vice President respect their oaths of office. If they will betray such a serious oath, won’t they lie about everything?

According to the discredited 9/11 Commission Report, a few Muslims hatched a multi-year plot that went undetected by the vast security agencies of the United States and its allies, and within one hour on one morning at four different locations defeated airport security, NORAD, the US Air Force, Vice President Cheney, Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld, the Pentagon’s defenses and crashed three hijacked airliners into the World Trade Center towers and the heart of the US military. Muslims were able to achieve this fantastic feat operating out of caves in Afghanistan.

We now know for a fact that the “terrorist anthrax attack” had nothing whatsoever to do with Muslim terrorists. Even the US Government now blames white American citizens, employees of the federal government, for the anthrax letters that, at the time, were blamed on the “Osama bin Laden al Qaeda plot against America.”

We now know for a fact that this was intentional disinformation planted by the Bush Regime on a gullible and incompetent ABC News reporter, who is a disgrace to journalism. No one denies this.

We also know for a fact that ABC News will not say who planted on ABC the lies that committed the United States to the dishonor of an illegal invasion, war crimes, and executive branch attack on the US Constitution. How can anyone anywhere in the world rely on ABC News when it serves as a disinformation agency for a criminal regime?

The anthrax letters made the “terrorist attack” seem wider and more general. This increased the sense of peril and Americans’ fear and anger, thereby opening wider the door for the Bush Regime’s attack on Iraq and US civil liberty.

Now that the dead Ivins can be conveniently blamed for the anthrax mailings, the Bush Regime can declare the case closed, thus protecting the false flag operation from further risk of exposure.

Many Americans lack the mental and emotional strength to confront the facts. The facts are too unsettling and many are relieved when the “mainstream media” spins the facts away. Many Americans find it too appalling that any part of “their” government, even a rogue operation, could possibly have been involved in any way in the anthrax attacks. No evidence--not even full confessions--could convince them otherwise. Many Americans have welcomed their brainwashing by the neoconservatives: America is pure; her shining virtue causes evil men to attack her; they hate us because we are good and they are evil.

For the sake of argument, let’s accept this make-believe. It does not explain why, in order to protect us from evil men, the US Constitution needs to be dismantled and civil liberties set aside. Our Founding Fathers said that dismantling the Constitution and setting aside civil liberties are precisely what would make us unsafe in the extreme. The Bush Regime has never explained how the civil liberties guaranteed by the Constitution interfere with any legitimate response to terrorism.

The fact still remains that the Bush Regime responded to 9/11 and anthrax letters with a comprehensive assault on US civil liberty. The Bush Regime’s assault on America has been much more successful than its assault on “terrorism.” Who remembers the promise of a “six weeks war”? Americans have been mired for 6 years in two wars without end which the neoconned Bush Regime, in alliance with Israeli zionists, seeks to expand to Iran, Pakistan, Syria, and Lebanon. The Republican candidate for president has given his commitment to a 100-year “war against terrorism.” Many Americans will vote for this candidate who wants to fight against a hoax for 100 years.

In The Twilight of Democracy: The Bush Plan for America, Jennifer Van Bergen explains the constitutional and legal principles on which American liberty is based and the Bush Regime’s intense assault on these principles. Part I of her book sets out the Constitutional principles that are under attack. Part II details the systematic attack on the US Constitution that is the heart and soul of the Republican neoconservative Bush Regime--and a Regime it is as it asserts that it is above the law and unanswerable to law, Congress, the federal courts, and the Constitution that it is sworn to uphold

Jennifer Van Bergan likens Bush and his brownshirt supporters to Julius Caesar in motives, though not in courage. She cites the poet Lucan who in his work Pharsalia described Caesar as he flouted the law of the Roman Republic and crossed the Rubicon with his army: “When Caesar crossed and trod beneath his feet the soil of Italy’s forbidden fields, ‘here,’ spake he, ‘peace, here broken laws be left; Farewell to treaties. Fortune, lead me on; War is our judge.’”

Anyone who believes that the Bush Regime’s “war on terror” is about terrorism, oil, getting even with those who attacked us, bringing freedom and democracy to Muslims--whatever rationale makes the gratuitous war crimes committed by the Bush Regime acceptable to gullible Americans--needs to read Jennifer Van Bergan’s Twilight of Democracy. Nothing less than American liberty is at stake.

The hour is late. Gullible Americans are being marched off into tyranny as the promised land of safety.

_______________________

Paul Craig Roberts Syndicated Columns

paulcraigroberts@yahoo.com

WIKI LINK: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Craig_Roberts

Sigh.....

Law Professor: Counter Terrorism Czar Told Me There Is Going To Be An i-9/11 And An i-Patriot Act

Steve Watson
Infowars.net
Tuesday, August 5, 2008

Amazing revelations have emerged concerning already existing government plans to overhaul the way the internet functions in order to apply much greater restrictions and control over the web.

Lawrence Lessig, (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_Lessig) a respected Law Professor from Stanford University told an audience at this years Fortune’s Brainstorm Tech conference in Half Moon Bay, California, that “There’s going to be an i-9/11 event” which will act as a catalyst for a radical reworking of the law pertaining to the internet.

Lessig also revealed that he had learned, during a dinner with former government Counter Terrorism Czar Richard Clarke, that there is already in existence a cyber equivalent of the Patriot Act, an “i-Patriot Act” if you will, and that the Justice Department is waiting for a cyber terrorism event in order to implement its provisions.

During a group panel segment titled “2018: Life on the Net”, Lessig stated:

There’s going to be an i-9/11 event. Which doesn’t necessarily mean an Al Qaeda attack, it means an event where the instability or the insecurity of the internet becomes manifest during a malicious event which then inspires the government into a response. You’ve got to remember that after 9/11 the government drew up the Patriot Act within 20 days and it was passed.

The Patriot Act is huge and I remember someone asking a Justice Department official how did they write such a large statute so quickly, and of course the answer was that it has been sitting in the drawers of the Justice Department for the last 20 years waiting for the event where they would pull it out.

Of course, the Patriot Act is filled with all sorts of insanity about changing the way civil rights are protected, or not protected in this instance. So I was having dinner with Richard Clarke and I asked him if there is an equivalent, is there an i-Patriot Act just sitting waiting for some substantial event as an excuse to radically change the way the internet works. He said “of course there is”.

Watch Lessig reveal the details at 4.30 into the following video:

Video Link: video.google.com/videoplay

Lessig is the founder of Stanford Law School’s Center for Internet and Society. He is founding board member of Creative Commons and is a board member of the Electronic Frontier Foundation and of the Software Freedom Law Center. He is best known as a proponent of reduced legal restrictions on copyright, trademark and radio frequency spectrum, particularly in technology applications.

These are clearly not the ravings of some paranoid cyber geek.

The Patriot Act, as well as its lesser known follow up the Domestic Security Enhancement Act 2003, also known as USA Patriot Act II, have been universally decried by civil libertarians and Constitutional scholars from across the political spectrum. They have stripped back basic rights and handed what have been described by even the most moderate critics as “dictatorial control” over to the president and the federal government.

Many believed that the legislation was a response to the attacks of 9/11, but the reality was that the Patriot Act was prepared way in advance of 9/11 and it sat dormant, awaiting an event to justify its implementation.

In the days after the attacks it was passed in the House by a majority of 357 to 66. It passed the Senate by 98 to 1. Congressman Ron Paul (R-Tex) told the Washington Times that no member of Congress was even allowed to read the legislation.

Now we discover that exactly the same freedom restricting legislation has already been prepared for the cyber world.

An i-9/11, as described by Lawrence Lessig, would provide the perfect pretext to implement such restrictions in one swift motion, as well as provide the justification for relegating and eliminating specific content and information on the web.

Such an event could come in the form of a major viral attack, the hacking of a major city’s security or transport systems, or some other vital systems, or a combination of all of these things. Considering the amount of unanswered questions regarding 9/11 and all the indications that it was a covert false flag operation, it isn’t hard to imagine such an event being played out in the cyber world.

However, regardless of any i-9/11 or i-Patriot Act, there is already a coordinated effort to stem the reach and influence of the internet.

We have tirelessly warned of this general movement to restrict, censor, control and eventually completely shut down the internet as we know it, thereby killing the last real vestige of free speech in the world today and eliminating the greatest communication and information tool ever conceived.

Our governments have reams of legislation penned to put clamps on the web as we know it. Legislation such as the PRO-IP Act of 2007: H.R. 4279, that would create an IP czar at the Department of Justice and the Intellectual Property Enforcement Act of 2007: S. 522, which would create an entire ‘Intellectual Property Enforcement Network’. These are just two examples.

In addition, we have already seen how the major corporate websites and social networks are decentralizing and coming together to implement overarching identification, verification and access systems that have been described by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg as “the beginning of a movement and the beginning of an industry.”

Some of these major tech companies have already joined efforts in projects such as the Information Card Foundation, which has proposed the creation of a system of internet ID cards that will be required for internet access. Of course, such a system would give those involved the ability to track and control user activity much more effectively. This is just one example.

In addition, as we reported yesterday, major transportation hubs like St. Pancras International, as well as libraries, big businesses, hospitals and other public outlets that offer wi-fi Internet, are blacklisting alternative news websites and making them completely inaccessible to their users.

These precedents are merely the first indication of what is planned for the Internet over the next 5-10 years, with the traditional web becoming little more than a vast spy database that catalogues people’s every activity and bombards them with commercials, while those who comply with centralized control and regulation of content will be free to enjoy the new super-fast Internet 2.

We must speak out about this rampant move to implement strict control mechanisms on the web NOW before it is too late, before the spine of the free internet is broken and its body essentially becomes paralyzed beyond repair.

Related: Get Outraged And Get Active About Internet Censorship

Hat Tip: Harold Gray, JustGetThere.us

_______________________

www.prisonplanet.com/law-professor-counter-terror ism-czar-told-me-there-is-going-to-be-an-i-911-an d-an-i-patriot-act.html

Video 1: Watch this first: The Illuminati sElection of 2008 and the Status Quo

www.youtube.com/watch

Video 2: George Bush New World Order (One of many times Bush Sr. called for a New World order)

www.youtube.com/watch

Video 3: Clinton Agreed

www.youtube.com/watch

Video 4: British Prime Minister Gordon Brown calls for a New World Order

www.youtube.com/watch

Video 5: The New World Order Comes Crashing Down With Dr. Chuck Baldwin!

www.youtube.com/watch

_______________________

Note: 9/11 Was An Inside Job. Chuck Baldwin openly states he wants to re-investigate 9/11.

Presidential candidate Chuck Baldwin supports a new 9/11 Investigation

Video link: www.youtube.com/watch

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chuck_Baldwin

A former member of the Republican Party, Baldwin has been a longstanding critic of U.S. President George W. Bush. Baldwin is known as a staunch opponent of what he calls the "New World Order", the "North American Union" and amnesty for illegal immigrants. Baldwin has also suggested reopening the investigation into the September 11, 2001 attacks, believing that the 9/11 Truth Movement have a right to have their conspiracy theories investigated including the possibility of U.S. government involvement in the attacks.

_______________________

Video 6: Chuck Baldwin Endorsed Ron Paul

www.youtube.com/watch

Video 7: After watching this, how could you not of supported Ron Paul?

Donna D'Errico's Endorsement of Ron Paul for President

www.youtube.com/watch

Video 8: Ron Paul Revolution Invited to Support Chuck Baldwin

www.youtube.com/watch

Video 9: Jerome Corsi endorses Chuck Baldwin for President!

www.youtube.com/watch

Video 10: Dr. Chuck Baldwin on National ID Card, Fed, IRS, and Iraq

www.youtube.com/watch

Video 11: Dr. Chuck Baldwin's Speaks On The Global Elite

www.youtube.com/watch

Video 12: Ron Paul talks about the New World Order

During a campaign stop in Austin, TX, Presidential candidate Ron Paul stated that the "First President Bush said the New World Order was in tune-- and that's what they were working for. The U.N. is part of that government. They're working very significantly right now for a North American Union. That's why there's a lot of people in Washington right now who don't care too much about our borders. They have a philosophic belief that national sovereignty is not important. It is also the reason I've made the strong suggestion that the U.S. need not be in the U.N. for national security.

www.youtube.com/watch

Video 13: Chuck Baldwin on the American Revolution

www.youtube.com/watch

Video 14: Chuck Baldwin on Gun Rights

www.youtube.com/watch

Video 15: Socialism or Freedom? You Compare...

www.youtube.com/watch

Video 16: Chuck Baldwin Apple Mac Switch Parody - Obama McCain

www.youtube.com/watch

Video 17: Obama New World Order Speech in Berlin hailed by SKY News

www.youtube.com/watch

Video 18: Alex Jones Endorses Chuck Baldwin

www.youtube.com/watch

Video 19: Ron Paul Ad with Chuck Baldwin

www.youtube.com/watch

________________________________

Ich bin ein tool for the NWO

Kurt Nimmo
Infowars
July 24, 2008

“Berlin’s city center took on the atmosphere of a rock concert as more than 200,000 people jammed the German capital’s Tiergarten park to hear U.S. presidential candidate Barack Obama,” reports Bloomberg. “Spectators chanted ‘yes we can,’ Obama’s catchphrase, as the 46-year-old senator stressed the shared ‘burdens of global citizenship’ that bind the U.S. and Europe. Beer and sausage vendors lining the park provided refreshments.”

I now understand a little more clearly how Germans were suckered by Hitler, said to also have had a knack for oration. Problem is Obama is not running for office in Germany, although one particularly deluded individual carted around a placard reading: Obama For Chancellor. He had a flower in his hair… or at least the brim of his hat.

Indeed, there are “burdens of global citizenship” and under Herr Obama such burdens will only increase, as his wife indicated when she spoke of sacrifice. It’s time to run for the hills when members of the CFR talk about sacrifice.

Of course, it will be sacrifice for us, the little people, and not for the global elitists and their minions. But then we never learn, do we? Even Germans, who have no stake in Obama — not directly, anyway — or his selection as future decider-commander, are suckered into the patently absurd carnival — or as Bloomberg deems it, rock concert — atmosphere.

Somebody needs to tell the Germans — hell, somebody needs to tell the Americans — that Obama is a sock puppet for David Rockefeller, the Trilateral Commission, the CFR, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan Chase, Citigroup, Lehman Brothers, and the whole rotten and predatory financial class.

Is it possible any of the Germans gathered to celebrate Mr. Change realize the same banking interests behind Obama supported Hitler and were responsible for the immesne suffering of their relatives before and after the war? Hitler’s main source of economic support was the I.G. Farben chemical cartel and the I.G. Farben cartel was created by loans from Wall Street, most notably from the J.P. Morgan Group. It was all part of the Dawes Plan, contrived by the banker Charles Dawes and Morgan representative Owen Young. As described by CFR historian Carroll Quigley, this system was contrived by the bankers to create “a world system of financial control, in private hands, able to dominate the political system of each country and the economy of the world as a whole.” Hitler played right into the scheme, same as Obama will the moment he is selected. For more on this, see Antony C. Sutton’s Wall Street and the Rise of Hitler.

But never mind. As Paper Collar Joe Bessimer realized, there’s a sucker born every minute, a quote mistakenly attributed to P.T. Barnum. Germans and Americans love a good show, never mind the consequence.

Of course, after eight years of Obama, there will be a chance to throw him out, as the now mesmerizing Mr. Change song and dance by that time will be quite threadbare, as always. “The argument that the two parties should represent opposed ideals and policies, one, perhaps, of the Right and the other of the Left, is a foolish idea acceptable only to doctrinaire and academic thinkers,” writes Quigley. “Instead, the two parties should be almost identical, so that the American people can throw the rascals out at any election without leading to any profound or extensive shifts in policy. Then it should be possible to replace it, every four years if necessary, by the other party, which will be none of these things but will still pursue, with new vigor, approximately the same basic policies.”

Don’t tell the Germans and Americans, though.

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Links:

Ron Paul's campaign for liberty

www.campaignforliberty.com/

www.ronpaul.org/

Chuck Baldwin links:

www.baldwin08.com/

www.chuckbaldwinlive.com/

www.constitutionparty.com/

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JOIN FORCES!!!!

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The group Vietnam Veterans Against McCain attacks Senator John McCain's heroism as a POW in the Vietnam conflict; this is making some waves in the news due to McCain's presidential candidacy. The documentary "Missing, Presumed Dead the Search for America's POWs" however focuses more on Senator John McCain successfully blocking the release of classified POW/MIA documents. Here is a DVD extra from that documentary. A DVD of the documentary may be purchased at www.MissingPresumedDead.com

Video: www.youtube.com/watch

www.vietnamveteransagainstjohnmccain.com/

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